The hearing on two competing personal property tax relief bills has opened in the Abraham Lincoln Auditorium this morning, with the House Revenue & Taxation hearing (but not voting on) two bills: HB 272, from the Idaho Association of Counties, to pull the trigger on the never-implemented 2008 legislation to exempt the first $100,000 in business equipment from the personal property tax in each county, thus removing the tax entirely from up to 90 percent of Idaho businesses; and HB 276, the IACI bill for a $120 million phased-out full repeal of the tax.

So far, nearly everyone signed up to testify is in support of the counties’ bill and opposed to IACI’s, including numerous representatives of local governments, schools, chambers of commerce and more.