LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
                              Austin, Texas
                                     
                    FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session
  
                            February 28, 2001
  
  
          TO:  Honorable Rene Oliveira, Chair, House Committee on Ways &
               Means
  
        FROM:  John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
  
       IN RE:  HB1280  by Hilderbran (Relating to providing revenue from
               the gasoline tax to municipalities and counties for
               constructing and maintaining roads.), As Introduced
  
**************************************************************************
*  Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for    *
*  HB1280, As Introduced:  negative impact of $(7,080,105) through       *
*  the biennium ending August 31, 2003.                                  *
*                                                                        *
*  The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal      *
*  basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of    *
*  the bill.                                                             *
**************************************************************************
  
General Revenue-Related Funds, Six-Year Impact:
  
          ****************************************************
          *  Fiscal Year  Probable Net Positive/(Negative)   *
          *               Impact to General Revenue Related  *
          *                             Funds                *
          *       2001                           $(206,204)  *
          *       2002                          (5,255,041)  *
          *       2003                          (1,618,860)  *
          *       2004                          (1,620,814)  *
          *       2005                          (1,464,335)  *
          *       2006                          (1,466,457)  *
          ****************************************************
  
All Funds, Six-Year Impact:
  
***************************************************************************
*Fiscal      Probable        Probable        Probable       Change in     *
* Year    Savings/(Cost)     Revenue         Revenue     Number of State  *
*          from General    Gain/(Loss)     Gain/(Loss)    Employees from  *
*          Revenue Fund     from State    from Counties      FY 2000      *
*              0001        Highway Fund        and                        *
*                              0006       Municipalities                  *
*  2001        $(206,204)              $0              $0             5.0 *
*  2002       (5,255,041)   (101,485,000)     101,485,000            38.0 *
*  2003       (1,618,860)   (113,565,000)     113,565,000            38.0 *
*  2004       (1,620,814)   (116,495,000)     116,495,000            38.0 *
*  2005       (1,464,335)   (119,535,000)     119,535,000            32.0 *
*  2006       (1,466,457)   (122,743,000)     122,743,000            32.0 *
***************************************************************************
  
Technology Impact
  
The technology impact cost would be $3.4 million in fiscal year 2002 for
programming a new automated system.  The estimate includes CPU, DASD,
and tape silo costs of $36,000 for fiscal year 2003 and assumes a 5
percent growth rate every fiscal year thereafter.  The technology impact
also includes over $200,000 per year for electronic data processing
equipment and software.
  
  
Fiscal Analysis
  
The bill amends Chapter 153 of the Tax Code by allocating a portion of
the state gasoline tax to the county or municipality in which the
gasoline was sold.

The state gasoline tax would remain at $0.20 per gallon, but $0.01 of the
gasoline tax would be distributed to the county or municipality in which
the gasoline was sold.  The $0.01 allotment would be taken from the
portion of the tax presently deposited in the State Highway Fund 0006.
The funds distributed to counties or municipalities would be deposited
and maintained by the local entities in accounts separate from all other
local revenue accounts.  Local entities could use the funds only to
acquire rights-of-way and to construct and maintain roads.

The bill requires dealers and gasoline jobbers to include information in
their tax reports specifying how many gallons of taxable gasoline were
sold in each county in Texas.  These reports would be obliged to indicate
how many gallons of taxable gasoline were sold within each municipality
of a county.

Each month, the Comptroller's Office would compute, for the previous
month:  the total number of gallons of taxable gasoline sold, the total
number of gallons sold in each county but outside of a municipality, and
the total number of gallons sold in each county and inside of a
municipality.  The Comptroller's Office would then allocate a portion of
the gasoline tax collected equivalent to one cent per gallon sold to
municipalities or counties.

The bill takes effect October 1, 2001.
  
  
Methodology
  
This estimate is based on an analysis made by the Comptroller's Office.
The Comptroller's Office assumed that the duplication of reported taxable
gasoline sales by jobbers to dealers could be corrected by jobbers and
dealers filing additional supplements with the Comptroller's Office.  As
written, the bill would not permit the capture of information relating to
taxable gasoline sales by distributors to bulk end-users.  The
Comptroller's Office also assumed that distributors filing additional
supplement information would yield data on county-specific gasoline
sales.  Forecasted gasoline tax revenues contained in the Comptroller's
2002-2003 Biennial Revenue Estimate, as well as projections through 2006,
were the bases for estimates of the bill's proposed allocation amounts.
However, the estimate for fiscal year 2002 was adjusted for the October
1, 2001 effective date. 

The Comptroller's Office estimated an additional five persons would be
needed in fiscal year 2001 and 38 persons in fiscal year 2002 and each
year thereafter to handle the increased workload of developing a system
to generate and process data returns, maintaining files, processing,
taxpayer correspondence, undertaking audits and  enforcement activities,
and distributing the monthly allocations to the counties and/or cities.
  
  
Local Government Impact
  
Local units of government, either counties or municipalities, would
receive additional funding in the amounts shown in the above table.
  
  
Source Agencies:   304   Comptroller of Public Accounts
LBB Staff:         JK, SD, WP, CT