State Sen. Mike Mazzei says the effectiveness of as much as $1.5 billion in state tax exemptions and incentives must be re-evaluated.
Mazzei told the Republican Club of Tulsa on Friday that the assessment is necessary if the state is to reform its tax system.
"We need to go through a review and analysis process just to find out the net benefits versus the net costs," Mazzei said. "If they're doing something, great, let's keep them. But if it's not, if it . . . robs our ability to be a low income-tax state . . . or have more money for schools, let's get those things that are obsolete and ineffective and get rid of them."
As co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Mazzei has spearheaded an attempt to tighten up the tax system.
As others before him have learned, fiddling with tax breaks is something much more easily talked about than accomplished.
"A lot of people are mad at me," Mazzei said. "A hundred fifty thousand farmers have been told Sen. Mazzei is trying to eliminate all the agriculture tax exemptions. That's not the case."
But Mazzei said he would like to see sunset language in tax exemption legislation that requires them to be re-examined on a regular basis.
He decided not to bring his bill formalizing the process out of committee before last week's deadline, but he remains committed to some form of action on the issue.
A moratorium on new tax breaks would be a start, he said.
Most such measures are slipped into appropriations bills late in the legislative session, but Mazzei said he put his foot down on them last year.
"If we had said yes to them, it would have been $420 million over five years," he said.
Like most Republicans, Mazzei bristles at the suggestion that recent tax cuts are re sponsible for the state's tight budget.
"We don't have budget issues because of the cuts," he said. "It's a management problem."
Mazzei said a failure to fund some departments fully, most notably the Corrections Department, has caught up with the state in the form of emergency appropriations that are reliant on future revenue.
"We've done this screwy stuff for years and years," he said. "We are working hard to stop that."
Randy Krehbiel 581-8365
randy.krehbiel@tulsaworld.com
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