TULSA, Okla. — Today legislators of the Joint Committee on pandemic relief funding met to discuss how they want to provide Oklahomans inflation relief.
Representative Logan Phillips talked about the tax reform options that are on the table and how they could impact your pocket.
“Food costs, are extremely up, utility costs are skyrocketing, just everything about every aspect of life seems to be out of reach for Oklahomans," Rep. Logan Phillips, R- District 24 said.
Desiree Mohamad understands that all too well. Wednesday she was shopping for groceries at Oasis Fresh Market.
“My bill is got to go behind because I’ve got to eat, I’ve got to pay light bill and everything has just up so high," Mohamad said.
Mark Callory, a family medicine doctor, said in his line of work he sees the impact food prices have not just on the wallet, but the overall health of Oklahomans.
“I think the price is always going to play a role, you know, buying healthy food versus unhealthy food and the unhealthy food is cheaper, we know that time and time again, they will do that. So, anything we can do to keep their cost overall down, allows people to make healthier decisions," Callory said.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma legislators are busy at work, trying to reach deals they said would give Oklahomans inflation relief. Today, the Joint Committee on Pandemic Relief Funding met to discuss possible bills, including a partial or total repeal of the state grocery tax.
In June, the house and senate convened for a special session on inflation relief but failed to reach a deal. Since then, Governor Kevin Stitt has taken to social media several times, urging lawmakers to make a change.
Phillips said they want that change too.
“Both leaderships are really adamant about finding a relief, it really just comes down to how do we make the impact without hurting us,” Phillips said.
Phillips said although getting rid of the grocery tax sounds appealing, many small towns like mounds, where Phillips is from, rely on that money to fund local services.
“That’s how we fund our police, our firefighters, that’s how we fund part of our school system, so if you eliminate the tax base for groceries at its core, all of it, you wind up destroying a large percentage for local services here in Oklahoma," Phillips said.
Phillips said grocery sales tax is broken into two parts, state and local. He said the state grocery tax makes up 70 percent of the total grocery tax and the remaining 30 percent is local grocery tax.
Phillips said they are thinking of eliminating the state grocery tax altogether and placing a moratorium on the local 30 percent to keep it from being raised.
"So, we'll lock it into place so that no one can raise anything," Phillips said.
Phillips said legislators will meet from September 28th through the 30th to propose and potentially vote on new bills, but Desiree said that relief is not coming soon enough.
“When you have to pay for groceries and then you have to pay the taxes, that’ll be great if they could do something to help us because it’s really expensive," she said.
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