A Democratic senator was able to add a last-minute provision to the last of Gov. Rick Perry’s business tax cut bills calling for more oversight and monitoring of the program.
Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, was able to add his provision to House Bill 500, which provides Texas small businesses with $600 million in tax cuts.
The attachment bill would have the Texas Comptroller review the businesses receiving a tax cut to be sure such cuts were effective.
"The comptroller will put together a schedule over a 12-year period to review all of the loopholes, all of the giveaways, all of the tax-cuts that are in state law to see which ones make sense, which ones don’t make sense and then that would be submitted to the legislative budget board," Ellis said.
Ellis said that information would be reviewed each legislative session by lawmakers to determine if these business tax cuts are serving their intended purpose.
"Most members of the legislature have not seen a tax cut that they don't like because you can put out a press release and brag about it," Eillis said. "What you don’t see is the pain, the agony for the programs that don’t get funded. Whether or not these tax cuts bring in any additional revenue or just make some fat cat richer."
Ellis said fellow lawmakers looked favorably on the amendment and now it only needs the governor's signature to become law.
