Governor Dennis Daugaard has vetoed three bills, all dealing with taxation.
Governor Dennis Daugaard vetoed Senate Bill 159, which exempts American Legion and VFW baseball coaches from sales and use tax. Representative Tona Rozum is a prime sponsor of the measure. She says most of the coaches are college kids who aren’t making minimum wage.
“This is basically a nonprofit group,” Rozum says. “It isn’t the intent, I don’t believe of our state government to operate on the backs of these nonprofit groups run by veterans or backed by veterans. And to put this sales tax on the back of kids.”
But Governor Daugaard says exemptions like Senate Bill 159 erode the sales tax base and diminish a steady, reliable source of revenue for the state. He says it could lead to additional exemption requests in the future.
The Governor vetoed Senate Bill 136, which excludes certain municipal taxes from the gross receipts used to determine the tax liability for customers served by electric cooperatives and electric utilities. He says he doesn’t accept the argument that the current taxation system imposes a double tax.
Daugaard also vetoed a bill creating a leased residential property classification. Representative Don Haggar says Senate Bill 100 is an economic development tool.
“Often the problem is hey, where are we going to house the workers that we want to attract? And it’s a challenge. And so this bill attempts to help us quantify the need, quantify the supply of that sort of housing,” Haggar says.
While the bill doesn’t create a different rate of taxation for leased residential properties, Governor Daugaard says the proponents’ stated intent is eventually to seek a separate levy for property in this class. He says it’s the first step toward a change that will shift the property tax burden onto ag, non ag and owner-occupied property taxpayers, without any guarantee of savings for residents for leased properties.
Daugaard signed into law Senate Bill 177, establishing a youth minimum wage of seven dollars and 50 cents for workers under the age of 18.