By Jack Brammer
NKyTribune reporter
Many Kentucky residents would get a tax refund this year if a plan Senate Republicans rolled out Thursday becomes law.
In a specially called meeting, the state Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee approved a revised bill that would give a $500 tax refund to last year’s individual tax filers and a $1,000 refund to joint filers.
The one-time refund is only for Kentucky residents who paid state income taxes last year.
The chair of the committee, Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill, said the plan in Senate Bill 194 is in response to the 40-year-high inflation rate of 7.5 percent.
The rebate is possible, he said, because of unexpected revenue
growth of more than $1.94 billion.
The rebate will cost the state about $1.15 billion.
Qualified persons do not have to do anything to get the refunds. “They just come to you,” said McDaniel.
The refunds would be coming out in late spring or early summer, “ideally by the end of summer,” said the lawmaker.
McDaniel stressed that the planned refunds are “completely separate” from discussions in the legislature about tax reform this year and work on the next two-year state budget.
He also said the rebate plan is not in response to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s recent executive order to freeze vehicle property taxes and proposal to drop the state sales tax from 6 percent to 5 percent during the state’s next fiscal year that begins July 1.
Under Beshear’s plan, Kentuckians would see tax relief of about $1.2 billion — $873 million related to sales tax savings and $340 million from the reduction in vehicle property taxes.
Beshear said his sales tax measure would benefit all Kentuckians regardless of their wealth.
The Senate committee approved McDaniel’s bill, with support from all Republican members. The two Democrats on the panel were not in attendance.
The measure now goes to the full Senate for its consideration.