MERIDIAN, Miss. (Queen City Newsfeed) – Six weeks into the 2025 legislative session, Mississippi State Senator Jeff Tate of District 33 said the pace of the legislative process is beginning to pick up as deadlines loom.
Friday, February 14 marked the deadline for general bills to pass through both the Senate and House chambers. Today, Monday, February 17, is a pivotal point in the session, where lawmakers begin moving bills between the chambers.
Now, House bills that made it out of committee and off the floor will be sent to various Senate committees for further review. Committee chairmen will determine which bills are worth advancing, which need amendments, and which can move forward unchanged. This process is expected to take the next few weeks before the bills are brought before the Senate floor for consideration.
Tate, who serves as the Senate Chairman of the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, shared his thoughts with Queen City Newsfeed’s Cash Matlock on the state of the legislative session and current tax proposals under consideration.
“Right now, there is an appetite to be able to decrease our income tax, and I really prefer the word ‘decrease of tax on work.’ That’s really what it is. These are working people that are being taxed, and look, we’re taxed for all types of things. We’re taxed for the food that we buy, we’re taxed for the gasoline that we put in our cars. We’re taxed for our income, our work. I think if there’s one thing that we need to focus on reducing, if not completely eliminating, is that tax on work,” said Tate.
Tate went on to outline the two major tax proposals currently on the table.
“I can tell you that the Senate version that doesn’t meet the general bill deadline, but will meet the deadline in the next week or two, will have the income tax from 4% down to 3%. It’ll have an immediate effect on our grocery tax by lowering it by a couple percent, and then also having a 3 cent gasoline tax for year one, two, and three. The House version, I haven’t gotten into the full details of hardly any House bills, because now is the time that we start doing that. From what I understand, they have an elimination of the income tax over the course of ten years. They have a 5% gasoline tax increase, and a 1.5% sales tax increase on all goods along with a reduction in the grocery tax,” said Tate.
Tate highlighted the key difference between the two plans: “So, what you just heard are two different plans, both overall make it where Mississippians pay less in taxes, so we’re looking forward to the next two or three weeks to see just exactly how that’ll shape up, but at the end of the day, we want Mississippians to be able to have more money in their pocket to spend, to have more of this economic boom that we can have here in Mississippi with all of the economic development that we’ve had with the data center, the aluminum plant in Columbus, Amazon coming here. We’re looking forward to just driving that up.”
As the legislative session continues, Tate and his colleagues will remain focused on shaping a tax plan that benefits Mississippians while promoting economic growth in the state. The next few weeks are crucial in determining which proposals will make it across the finish line.
Watch the full interview here:
