LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
Austin, Texas
FISCAL NOTE, 76th Regular Session
March 30, 1999
TO: Honorable Bill Ratliff, Chair, Senate Committee on Finance
FROM: John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE: SB1319 by Ratliff (relating to procedures for tax
auditing and collection), Committee Report 1st House,
Substituted
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* Estimated Two-Year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Fundsfor *
* SB1319, Committee Report 1st House, Substituted: positive impact *
* of $27,300,000 through the biennium ending August 31, 2001. *
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General Revenue-Related Funds, Five-Year Impact:
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* Fiscal Year Probable Net Positive/(Negative) *
* Impact to General Revenue Related *
* Funds *
* 2000 $8,200,000 *
* 2001 19,100,000 *
* 2002 27,305,000 *
* 2003 27,305,000 *
* 2004 27,305,000 *
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All Funds, Five-Year Impact:
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*Fiscal Probable Probable Probable Probable *
* Year Revenue Revenue Revenue Revenue *
* Gain/(Loss) Gain/(Loss) Gain/(Loss) Gain/(Loss) *
* from General from Cities from Transit from Counties *
* Revenue Fund Authorities and Special *
* 0001 Districts *
* 2000 $8,200,000 $1,430,000 $562,000 $173,000 *
* 2001 19,100,000 3,331,000 1,308,000 403,000 *
* 2002 27,305,000 4,762,000 1,870,000 577,000 *
* 2003 27,305,000 4,762,000 1,870,000 577,000 *
* 2004 27,305,000 4,762,000 1,870,000 577,000 *
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Fiscal Analysis
The bill would partially implement recommendation GG1 from the
Comptroller's report "Challenging the Status Quo: Toward Smaller,
Smarter Government." The bill would allow taxpayers to self-audit under
certain conditions. Except in cases of fraud or evasion, penalty on
delinquent taxes found through self-audits would be waived. The
Comptroller would be authorized to waive interest due on delinquent taxes
identified through self-audit. A taxpayer would be entitled to refund
of tax overpayments found through self-audit unless the taxpayer had
collected the taxes from another person and not refunded all the taxes
and interest to the person from whom the taxes were collected.
The bill would allow the Comptroller to implement a system under which
sales tax direct payers could report taxes based on percentages
calculated from a sample of transactions.
The bill would allow a sales tax permit holder to take a credit against
sales taxes due in the amount of sales tax previously overpaid. The
affected taxpayer would be allowed to use sampling to compute the
overpayments.
Methodology
The estimates are based on Comptroller's assumption that self-audits and
percentage-based reporting would result in more productive redirection
of 5% of audit hours in 2000-01 and 10% of audit hours thereafter.
Local Government Impact
The estimates of local tax gains assume that the redirected audits will
be sales tax audits which would result in increased local sales tax
collection proportional to the state gains.
Source Agencies:
LBB Staff: JK, BB, RS