Senate Tax Chairman Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, told the members of the Tax Working Group, “Certainly this group has nothing but maybe an advisory position to the whole Legislature, but hopefully we will have the information and the answers available to help guide that decision through the Legislature as to what the goals are.”

He said lawmakers in recent years have gotten to the end of the legislative session and “we seem to have a bit of a wreck when it comes to tax policy – whether we’re going to be able to afford relief or not, and if we are, what kind of relief we’re most interested in giving, whether it be on personal property, or just property, or an income tax or corporate income tax relief.” He said, “We want to hear your ideas, we really want to hear your thoughts.”

“And certainly before we get too much further down the line, we’ll probably be asking for some public input on what we want,” Siddoway said. “We also need to have discussions with LSO (Legislative Services) and DFM (the governor’s Division of Financial Management) and the governor’s office on what their ideas are, and certainly the public, we want to know from them, if there is going to be tax relief, what form of tax relief is the best fit, if it’s an income tax relief, if it’s a grocery tax relief, whatever kind. And we hope that the committee will put a lot of thought into that and into this process.”