POLICY WATCH

Don’t Miss Out on Your Property Tax Credit

Recent news has drawn attention to the fact that more than $50 million of the $125 million set aside for Nebraska’s newest property tax relief program created by LB 1107 last year, has failed to reach taxpayers. Some have gone so far as to say the program which Nebraska Farm Bureau supports is not working. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The new program requires property owners to claim the credit when they file their income taxes. In the first year of this program, many taxpayers and tax preparers did not know this credit existed. Consequently, they did not claim the credit on their tax returns. Some critics say the process for claiming the credits is too cumbersome. Nebraska Farm Bureau is working with the Department of Revenue to alleviate those difficulties.

All is not lost. For those who did not claim their credits this year, they can file an amended return to claim the credit. There’s more. This year, taxpayers got back about 6 percent of the school property taxes they paid during 2020. Next year, taxpayers can get back close to 25 percent of the school property taxes they paid during 2021 because the amount set aside for the LB 1107 credits has more than quadrupled to $548 million. And, the credits are refundable, meaning that taxpayers get money back even if their tax credit exceeds what they owe in income taxes. This program is working.

If that is not enough, the new LB 1107 credit program is in addition to a long-standing property tax credit program, which provided $275 million worth of credits last year, will distribute $300 million this year, and will provide $313 million next year. That is quite an improvement from where property taxpayers were a year ago. LB 1107 is a successful means for getting property tax relief to taxpayers.

NEFB Meets with White House Office of Management and Budget on WOTUS

Nebraska Farm Bureau’s (NEFB) Director of National Affairs, Jordan Dux, along with representatives from American Farm Bureau, Iowa Farm Bureau, and Illinois Farm Bureau met with officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to discuss the Biden administration’s efforts to repeal President Trump’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR). The NWPR was developed by the Trump EPA to replace the 2015 Obama era Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule which NEFB opposed. In verbal comments delivered to OMB, Farm Bureau representatives strongly pushed back against the plan to repeal the NWPR as it provided needed clarity and limited the regulatory scope of the Clean Water Act. NEFB specifically highlighted the NWPR’s clear exemption of groundwater from federal regulatory control saying state-level and local control was the best way to protect this precious resource.

The State of: Fall 2021 Politics

Through a series of articles, called The State,  American Farm Bureau Federation’s Advocacy and Political Affairs team is providing analysis related to “the state of” various aspects related to advocacy and political trends impacting farmers and ranchers and rural Americans. In this first article, Farm Bureau looks at the state of fall politics, including the potential passage of the roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the proposed $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.