A Nebraska bill containing a provision to set a 25 percent tax rate on hemp and CBD products—down from an initially proposed rate of 100 percent—fell apart this week, with its sponsor acknowledging on the final day of the state’s legislative session that it did not have the votes to overcome a filibuster.
Sen. Lou Ann Linehan (R) asked the measure be pulled from the agenda on Thursday.
“I’m willing to come back this summer, this fall, whenever,” Linehan said during floor debate. “But I hope we have a lot of conversations between now and then about all your perfect answers to this problem. Because it’s easy to say, ‘No, no, no.’ That’s real easy. So everybody who’s saying we can do better, I hope you have those ideas to the Revenue Committee by the end of June.”
The measure, LB 388, is part of a broader debate on how lawmakers want to balance sources of state revenue. Residents, many lawmakers have argued, regularly complain property taxes are too high, and proponents of the bill have said raising sales taxes would prevent further state reliance on property taxes to fund schools. Opponents, however, criticized the bill’s overall increase in taxes, with some Democrats noting that sales taxes in particular would hit poorer Nebraskans hardest.
The failure of the bill and its included hemp and CBD provisions, among a host of other changes, means the legislature is likely headed to a special session to deal with tax issues this summer.
As for the…
