BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 3484 |
By: Bonnen, Dennis |
Ways & Means |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Interested parties have raised various issues of concern with regard to the application of sales and use taxes to certain food items. C.S.H.B. 3484 seeks to address those issues.
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CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 3484 amends the Tax Code to limit the items that are considered snack items for purposes of the sales and use tax exemption for certain food products to the items that are specifically included in the statutory definition of "snack items." The bill includes as snack items pork rinds and corn nuts; sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds; ice cream, sherbet, and frozen yogurt; and ice pops, juice pops, sorbet, and other frozen fruit items containing not more than 50 percent fruit juice by volume. The bill excludes pine nuts as a snack item.
C.S.H.B. 3484 removes language specifying that the tax exemption does not apply to food, food products, and drinks served, prepared, or sold ready for immediate consumption in restaurants, lunch counters, cafeterias, vending machines, hotels, or like places of business but maintains the exclusion from the exemption of food, food products, and drinks served, prepared, or sold ready for immediate consumption by such places of business and further excludes from the exemption food, food products, and drinks served, prepared, or sold ready for immediate consumption by delis. The bill establishes that, for purposes of the exclusion of such food, food products, and drinks from the exemption, if a grocery store or convenience store contains a type of location like those places of business, the store is considered a like place of business but only in relation to items sold at that location. The bill specifies that the exclusion from the exemption of prepared food consisting of two or more food ingredients mixed or combined by the seller for sale as a single item applies regardless of where the item is prepared. The bill, for purposes of the exclusion from the exemption of snack items sold in individual-sized portions, removes language conditioning a portion being individual-sized if it contains less than 2.5 ounces on the number of servings not being specified on the package.
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EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2015.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 3484 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and formatted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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