Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor voted against the state’s two-year budget, even though it passed the Indiana General Assembly with bi-partisan support.
Taylor said he was concerned that the amount of funding for charter school vouchers was too high. He also does not support the state taxing federal unemployment benefits Hoosiers received in 2020, while business Paycheck Protection Program loans will not be counted toward state income tax.
Those loans also were forgiven by the federal government under the American Rescue Plan.
“So on one hand we’re taxing the people who work for the companies but the owners of the companies are going to get a direct benefit to their bottom line because we’re not going to tax the PPP money," he said. "And that just troubled me so I had to vote no on the budget.”
Indiana Senate Majority Leader Mark Messmer said the state has always taxed unemployment dollars, and made the decision not to deviate from that this year.
Listen Now: 2021 Legisltive Review
Taylor said if federal dollars for individuals are taxed by the state, then the same should have apply to businesses. He said 2020 put people in a unique situation that the state should have considered.
