State Representative Douglas Gutwein visited Pulaski County this week to speak to the county commissioners and council during a joint session held Monday night regarding a revenue bill vetoed by Governor Mike Pence that could affect the county’s CAGIT moneys. Gutwein explained that a clerical error at the state level could force the county to pay taxpayers back millions of dollars that had been collected by the County Adjusted Gross Income Tax – money that had originally been collected to cover the cost of the jail – because the state claims that the county overcharged its taxpayers. The county still owes roughly $5 million on the jail facility.
County Attorney Kevin Tankersley explained that the county did everything by the books.
“I just want to be clear that when the initial letter came from the Department of Revenue, they were like, ‘You overtaxed your taxpayers $5 million.’ They were quite aggressive about it. The reality is that it was checked by an independent county agency to make sure that no money went anywhere it wasn’t supposed to go. This is money that we agreed to pay back when we built an over-$8 million jail. And we’ve been collecting that money and paying that as we’re supposed to,” said Tankersley.
Gutwein said that the refunding of those moneys is a worst-case scenario, however, and said legislators are working hard to fix the issue. A revenue bill that would have fixed the problem was vetoed by the governor because, according to Gutwein, Pence does not approve of “retroactive” conditions, which Gutwein said are necessary in this case due to the state mix-up regarding the CAGIT tax.
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