The Iowa Legislature passed some tax changes before they adjourned for the year.

District 24 Senator Jesse Green says some of the changes include shifting mental health funding from property taxes to the state’s general fund, phasing out the state’s inheritance tax and removing the “triggers” for tax cuts. He points out that the Legislature has also stated that they will start to phase out the backfill on commercial property taxes over the next 4-6 years. The commercial backfill began in 2013 as a way to provide commercial property tax relief, while having the state fill in the potential budget shortfalls for counties and cities. 

Green talks about how this next fiscal year was the prime year to begin that phase out process.

“This was a good year to do it because the federal government is going to be, statewide, the counties are going to receive over a half a billion dollars in relief, due to the pandemic. Now that we’re taking mental health funding off of the property taxes that amount of money that the counties are going to be saving is more than the backfill portion.”

Green says the backfill accounts for a county’s budget is a total of 1-1.5-percent.