State lawmakers met Tuesday to discuss tax reform

State lawmakers met in Raleigh Tuesday to talk about tax reform, a topic that held up budget talks this summer.
   
The joint House-Senate Finance Committee met for the first time since the budget talks. They promised to revisit tax reform after raising taxes to balance the budget this summer. Senate democrats wanted to lower tax rates by broadening the number of items and services that can be taxed. Instead the legislature raised the sales tax rate and placed a surcharge on high income earners.
   
Some say it’s too late to lower taxes now.

“I have some reservations about our ability to do anything right now,” Sen. Martin Nesbitt (D-Asheville) said Tuesday. “I think we missed that opportunity this summer when we needed the revenue and didn’t want to run those rates up.”

Nesbitt said lawmakers need to focus on jump-starting the economy, instead of overhauling the state’s tax structure.