 This is Houseways Mains April 24th on Friday. And we on our schedule today, we're gonna hear from Craig Bolio, Commissioner of Taxes, who I see is with us. And I think at about 1030, is that right? We will have the Commissioner of Labor, Michael Harrington join us as well for some sort of follow up questions from the discussion we had yesterday in the Commerce Committee about taxes and filing for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program. So Craig, thank you for joining us. And I had asked Craig to come just to sort of update us on what's going on with the tax department. I'm including sort of just the collection issues, but also a bit of conversation about offsets because that's an issue that's come up a couple of times and it would be useful for the committee to have a discussion about it. So welcome. Yes, thanks for having me. Good morning, Craig Bolio, Tax Commissioner. So yeah, I have a number of topics I'll talk about today. This committee is all up to speed on the latest guidance from a couple of weeks ago from the IRS, right? About now all of the due dates have been pushed for second quarter personal income tax estimates, second quarter corporate and the fiscal year filers. I think I've spoken, okay. All right, so we'll jump right into where we are with filings at this point. To first hit the trust taxes, which we had talked about before, as of a couple of days ago for the February 29th period that was due March 25th, we're missing about 750 returns out of a little over 3,300 we would normally get. And a reminder, our normal non-filer count for that tax type for a monthly filer is like 300 to 400. So we're a little, we're about double, but that's better off than where we were even a couple of weeks ago. About 15% of the returns are underpaid in some way. So they're either haven't paid any of the tax, they've only paid a portion of the tax due. That's higher than normal for that tax type. Definitely normally we have a couple hundred of those per month. On the sales tax, the story's, oh, sorry, go ahead. So we're about to hit another due date, the 25th, is that right? And yeah, well, it'll be Monday. Okay, but right, roughly now. Yes. The figures that you're giving us are really just looking back to the taxes that we're due in March. Is that right? That's right, yeah. And we'll obviously do analysis come next week about what we have on the 27th deadline. The story for sales tax is a little bit better for the February period. So we get about 10,000 monthly sales tax returns, about 1,300. But that's actually not that out of bounds for our normal non-filer, because that's about 800 to 1,000 that we miss on a monthly basis normally. And on sales tax, only about 5% haven't paid the tax in full. So that's kind of expected between those two tax types because the hospitality industry has been hit harder than really any industries out there. On personal income tax reminder, since all the due dates were pushed to July by Vermont law, we are seeing a big drop in both returns filed and obviously money paid. So normally, if we look at last year, today we had received about 350,000 total returns. And a reminder, two thirds of our returns are refund requests. This year we have 260,000 returns. So it's like a 25% drop over last year. That drop is even more pronounced in the homestead filings, where at this point last year we had over 170,000 and right now we have about 110,000. So that's like a 35% drop. I think that those figures really speak to what I would say is my appreciation that the committee and town officials have been talking about giving towns the authority to move their property tax billing dates back. I know earlier in the season we were maybe hoping some of these will still come in, but we're just seeing a big drop. And I think that pushing those property tax billing dates out is probably a great solution to help offset some of the challenges that are gonna come by July 1st, where we simply will not have all of those filings that we need to send. One interesting piece. I'll interrupt for a second. When you talk about pushing the dates out, are you talking about pushing the fiscal 25 final payment dates out? Are we talking about just when the bills go out in? I'm talking the fiscal year 21, the early July stuff. And you're not talking about the payment date so much as you're talking about the date that they send the bills out. Right, I think you have to give 30 days before you can give, before you can apply penalty and interest. But yeah, the date that the bills get sent out. Because we just won't have a complete file by July 1st. Right, but there has been a big push to postpone payment dates for education tax for the end of fiscal 20. That's not what you're talking about. Correct. Okay, just to be clear. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm simply mentioning the discussion about moving the fiscal year 21, allowing towns the discretion to move their fiscal year 21 property tax billing dates. Thank you for allowing me to provide that clarity. One interesting thing about the drop in the filings is that it is almost entirely due to a drop in professionally prepared returns. So when you look at a 90,000 return drop between this year and last year, 80,000 of that is a decline in professionally prepared returns. So we are almost tracking as we normally would with self-prepared returns. And I think some of that is because we have still encouraged people to file, especially if they're expecting a refund. And so those who are able to sell a fair have continued to do that. But the different orders have caused, different challenges for paid preparer offices. Some of them have transitioned to remote, some not, some are just delayed. So that was just one interesting fact on that drop. In terms of our refunding, we have clearly gotten many fewer refunds than last year. I'm looking at my numbers now. So we are about 50,000 requested refunds behind where we were last year. Last year at this point, we had about 240,000 and now we have 190,000. But we are above where we were last year as you might expect in terms of percentage of refunds issued. So we've issued about three quarters of the requested refunds. And I would say as you're holding onto that three quarters number, remember that I'm counting refunds that came in the door literally yesterday that obviously would not have gone out yet. So I think that we're doing a good job. I mean, I think the challenge that you always deal with on this one bucket of refunds can easily be processed and go right out the door. One bucket requires moderate review and then one bucket requires a significant review or maybe even request for additional information. And those percentages of the bucket don't change that much even when your total volume changes. So even with our volume down, it can be difficult to just issue every refund but we have repurposed folks. There are many in our office audit division or our collection division who are both taking calls from taxpayers, our taxpayer service calls, as well as processing work items to make sure that we're getting refunds out in a timely manner. So I'm happy where we are on that but we will continue to do everything that we can to get that money out to the hands of needy Vermonters as soon as possible. I threw a lot of info out there. I'm happy to move right on to offsets if you'd like or pause for a moment. Pause for a second. Let me see if there's questions anyone has. Don't see any, so go ahead. Sure, so the topic of state refund intercepts has come up a little bit this week. I've testified to a couple of Senate committees. I think some of the context that's useful to provide there because one of the questions that has come to my office is are we at tax doing anything with the federal stimulus payments in terms of offsets? The answer to that is no. So those payments don't come through our office at all they're issued directly by the IRS. My understanding is there is no provision for state tax debt offsets nor would I want to pursue that if there had been discretion. So those payments are going directly out to folks. I do believe that there are some federal provisions that require offset to the office of child support but I can't readily speak to that unfortunately I'm not an expert in that area but those payments are not coming through our office. We're not doing any offsets to our intercept partners on that. But when it comes to the state tax refund offsets those are still continuing and it's not an area that I have discretion to stop. So those provisions are in sub chapter 12 of chapter 151 and the two statutes that I've specifically been looking at are 59, 33 and 59, 34 in both of those subsection B essentially say that the tax commissioner shall offset to qualifying state agencies and other partners. There are some non-state agencies that are qualifying partners for that. And one thing that I've shared with other committees that I would share with this committee is there had been some discussion of if those should stop. And what I would urge is thoughtfulness and caution if we take that route because when you look at our offset partners the largest ones in terms of amount of money that we send out, number one is the Vermont Judiciary, number two is Vermont State Colleges and number three is the Office of Child Support. And then actually if you take the top four and number four is the Vermont Restitution Unit, right? And so particularly if you're looking at an agency like the Office of Child Support much of that money goes directly to caregivers and most of those caregivers are not the state. So if we were to excuse me, take the opposite direction where right now I can't stop any of them and instead they stop all of them. I'm not sure that would be the right direction because there are some agencies in there who are providing money to people in need who would not be able to do that in the same way anymore. Restitution is a similar question, though I must admit I'm not an expert on how that fund works or how directly that money goes to crime victims. So my advice would be for the committee if they wanted to pursue that to talk to some of those agencies who would be impacted and get details on how that money is used and make sure that we don't have unintended consequences on that. When did the state colleges get an offset? So- Surprised me. Yeah, so you're not the only one who was surprised by that but it lays out in those statutes who can qualify. And so VSAC is another agency that's named in the statutes that is not a state agency. Although the Vermont State Colleges is considered a state agency. But they're one of the qualifying partners and so we offset for some of their student loans. And I think the other is fees and tuition that's unpaid, though I must also admit I can't speak readily to what's comprising the debt from those agencies. We don't get that detail in the file. All right, yeah, Robin. Thanks, I was gonna ask a similar thing about what would be some examples of judiciary offsets. So judiciary sends us a number of files. The largest is trial courts, which is my understanding is that's criminal fines. But they also do traffic tickets, other civil fines, things like that are in the judiciary file. Again, I would really refer to my colleagues at Judiciary who could speak more readily to that, but that's my somewhat limited understanding of what's in that file. Jim, you remuted there. Anyway, there you go. Two questions, one for now and one for later on before you go. Concerning the state college offset, I presume that's something that happens every year and maybe the amount of offset is the same this year in the same ballpark as some other year? You're correct that it happens every year. So every year we load a file at the beginning of tax season from these agencies that have certified their debts. I don't have the numbers offhand of what we sent last year, but when I compared last year to what we have so far this year, they seem to be in the same ballpark, yeah. I mean, this year it's low six figures, like a little over 300,000. For the ecologists, everybody. Ecologists. And I don't need to know the number if it's the same, it doesn't affect this year's budget anymore than any other year's budget, essentially. Right, this is not an anomalous year, it seems. Okay, thank you. And before you go, I have a question about 1099 filers, but we'll get to that when you've done your basic work here, thank you very much. Sounds good. Are there any offsets against the, any of the UI money, the $600 or anything like that? There aren't. Not from our office. You know, I don't know if Commissioner Harrington would be able to speak to if his office is required to send anything out, but we do not offset money from unemployment payments through our office at all. I guess I was thinking, that's probably what you were answering, but thinking if somebody owes you, owes the tax department, who do you offset against? Nobody, just if we want to refund. We do, yeah, we can offset internally, we also have, actually this is a good segue. And let me clarify, I mean, the Department of Labor for their unpaid unemployment, if they have to bill somebody is an offset partner with us, but we don't take money back from them. There's another provision in 3113 that again is not discretionary, it's a shall that we can capture or must capture payments for goods and services from businesses providing goods and services to the state that would otherwise have been the paid invoice to that business must instead go to us if they owe taxes. Is it possible for you to, I assume it's public, just give the aggregate amounts and the offsetting agency? Yes, yeah, I can stand that. I think all of that is public. Yeah, I think it'd be interesting. You know, it's a system that has kind of ramped up over the last couple of decades really, and it actually works fairly well, but I think it might be interesting just to sort of understand what the dimensions of it are. Sure. And who the offsetting agencies are. Yeah, there's about two dozen. I can get that pretty readily. That'd be interesting. So is there any communication with the offsetting agencies to suggest that they reevaluate whether they should be doing these offsets at this point? Yeah, so that's a good question. I'm actually trying to make sure that we can gather contact info. One of the questions that I've been asked is, do you think that all these agencies know that they have discretion to pull these files back? My answer to that is probably not. Some may know, and I will say we have had one agency, I'm not sure if I can name them, but we have had one agency who's pulled their debt file back. So it's possible. I think another question that may exist for agencies that is something that we can help clarify is the law provides a procedure that says, you can send one file a year around this time. And so certainly I think that we would have the discretion to accept more than one file if we wanted to at this point. And so if that is worrying anybody, we can also clarify that point. So I haven't done any kind of broad outreach yet, but I'm gathering info on how feasible that is. Questions, committee? Okay. Other issues that you wanna cover with us? Yeah, I had two other quick topics if that's okay. Another, I know another topic that has come up recently is how remote workers and the impacts to their income taxes. So the rules are the rules, which is right now, if somebody is not a Vermont resident and is working here remotely and has residency in another state, they will ultimately owed Vermont income tax on the income that they earned here. And almost every state, maybe every state has a provision to provide what's called an other state's credit because all of your income is always taxable to your state of residency. And so if you have income taxes owed to other states that are not your state of residency, your state of residency will provide a credit for that. Vermont does the same kind of thing for people who are working elsewhere, right? And this happens today, right? If you're a Vermonter, but you drive over the border to New Hampshire or New York to work every day, you have to pay, I guess not New Hampshire, let's use New York. You have to pay New York income taxes, but then you get a credit on your Vermont return. And so I know that this is gonna be an issue that a lot of states I think are facing as they go into next tax filing season because of what has happened in the world and all of this remote work at this point. It's a challenging problem, right? I don't know how many people who are not normally here and working remotely are. We don't have fail-safe tools to find all of them. So it's not a problem that I've spent a lot of time thinking about right now as we're dealing with the emergency because it's coming up in the next year situation. And I think many states will be trying to figure out the right path on this problem together. But an issue that has come up that I wanted to flag so it's on the committee's radar. Yeah, so how would you know? Great question. I mean, I'm not sure, right? In a normal situation, in a long-term standard situation, I mean, you might end up having Vermont withholding on your check, right? But in these kind of situations where someone has just gotten into their car and comes here and is gonna be here for six or eight weeks or whatever, they're not gonna change the withholding on their W-2. It's still gonna say New York or Massachusetts or Maine or whatever. So I don't know. I mean, my counterpoint to that is taxes are always to a certain degree a voluntary reporting system and for the most part, it works. People generally do the right thing. In this case, I think you have an added challenge that it's a complicated element of the law. And so it is not necessarily known to the general public what the right thing is to do. But yeah, I think we're gonna be, I think every state is gonna be asking that same question. And this is something that FTA and various state tax commissioner groups are discussing. I think, yeah, and I mean, some states are even talking about if they need to be changing rules, if they wanna be more lenient, less lenient. So I don't know where everybody's shaking out with that, but it's a discussion that's on the radar. Yeah, interesting one, Sam. Is it gonna be a possible thing to send out like kind of a notice to people who have second homes in Vermont, that they're just telling them what the filing requirements are if they live here for six months, is that kind of what we're talking about? Well, yeah, challenge number one is just identifying who's a second home in Vermont. That's a popular question for a variety of reasons and people. And it's one that's always very difficult to pin down. Timing, if you were gonna do an outreach campaign like that is also critical, right? If you sent it now, I'm not sure if people are thinking about it next year as they go to file their taxes. But yeah, it's a challenging question. I'm not sure what the right answer is. And just a follow up. Are Vermont tax rates lower than New York's? I mean, certainly lower than if you lived in the city, but lower than New York. Yeah, I should know that answer offhand I think the answer to it is yes, especially at the low end, but I'm not certain. When it comes to the other state's credit, you get the credit up for the rate of your state of residency normally. Like in Vermont, if you were working in another state with a higher tax rate, you would end up paying the difference in that tax to the other, you would pay all the tax to the other state and then your credit in Vermont would be up to the normal Vermont tax rate. Got it. And you don't have to calculate those things. It's just part of what the, you don't have to calculate the difference so you only get the credit for what you pay. That's right. Yeah, it's the max of what you've actually paid or what the rate would have been as you paid Vermont. Did I cut you off, Sam? I'm sorry. Nope, I was done. All right, Emily. Can you help me better understand the challenges with identifying who has a second home or who is a second homeowner? Yeah, and I, the biggest challenge is just the fields that exist in the grand list are not clearly defined as second homeowner, right? We have homestead and non-homestead. We have non-homestead residential because the non-homestead could be commercial but even the non-homestead residential could be full-time Vermont rental. We also have a code that I think is like seasonal camp and so that can be additive to it. So it's a challenge within the existing system to identify that. I will say this is getting a little off the topics that I had meant to bring but we are starting the integrated property tax management system project. So we actually just signed the contract for that recently and that's going to upgrade the statewide grand list. And this is one of the discussions of is there a way that we can improve the fields that exist in the grand list, make it more useful to towns, to the state? So this will be an ongoing discussion over the next year or so of just these kinds of questions. What have we historically not been able to answer that this system may help improve but I don't have solid details on what that looks like yet. Yeah, so I see that Commissioner Harrington is here and I think his time is somewhat limited am I right about that? Hi, I just need to be able to the governor's press conference at about quarter to 10 of 11. I'm sorry, quarter of? Quarter of 11. Connect, my connection anyway, isn't very good, sorry. No, so I just, I haven't told about 10, 45 or 10, 50 before I need to jump in. Okay, so maybe we should shift gears so you can get this, Craig, thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, shift gears to labor. And thank you for joining us. I think this is the first time you've been in this committee and some of us were in the meeting yesterday with the Commerce Committee and it just felt like there were some questions at that point and also during the debate in the House that perhaps we could have a conversation about, didn't affect the bill that was passing. So I think all of us supported that but wanted to give the committee a chance to ask some questions. I wanna say that of the three people that were most upset this morning who got their issues resolved and one didn't, which is not a perfect rate. But while I've been sitting here, I've been getting emails that two are happy and one's unhappy. So, and this is all the PUA program. So if committee members have questions they wanna start with or if you wanna start with a bit of a statement, that's fine, I see I've got one person who's already asking something. Do you wanna start with a few words about how things are going and then? Sure, record Michael Harrington, Interim Commissioner Department of Labor. Thank you for having me here today. An upward slog if you will, dealing with the large number of UI claims that come in over the past six to eight weeks. We most recently launched the Pandemic Employment Assistance Program which is predominantly going to impact the self-employed population or in contact population. But it also has some opportunity to provide some relief to others who just are not traditionally eligible under a general UI. Sorry to interrupt, but your connection's really challenging. I don't really understand it's breaking up so much. If you turn the video. I'm hardwired in, so I'm gonna make my video off. If you turn the video off, I think it'll help. Thank you so much, okay. So from the Pandemic Employment Assistance Program that went live about 36 hours ago, roughly we've had about 6,000 applications come in so far and those include a small portion of those are ones that will need to be clear or adjudicated, but for the most part, more than 90% of those have gone through the backfiling for past weeks. They file all the way back to March 15th. So each of those counts is a weekly claim and those payments should begin to be issued next week. And then we're using a much more robust platform. Those individuals who are in the PUA program will begin to receive weekly emails, letting them know when they can file for benefits each week and that will help cut down the number of people who miss a file deadline. But also in this program, you do miss a deadline, there is the ability to go back in time and report back. With our, to the call center, we brought on a vendor at the end of last, on Wednesday, I guess is the best way to say it, the end of this on Wednesday by the time of the technology, a switchover caught up to us. We had about 20 people on yesterday. We should have another 20 to 27 coming on by afternoon and then on Monday, I believe Monday or Tuesday of next week, we could have as many as 30 or so come on. So by Tuesday of next week, we'll be up over 70, additional 70 on the phone lines through the vendor. I'm having questions, but that kind of gives you a general overview. Just to let you know, we're still having a really hard time with the connection. It's slightly better with the video off, but it's breaking up a lot, but we'll persevere, because that's the choice we have. So Jen Maslin has a question and then Robin. Yeah, commissioner, thank you very much. I was gonna ask this to commissioner Bullio, but maybe you're the more appropriate person to answer this question. Concerning PUA, for people who are primarily 1099 filers, do they still put that on their schedule C? Is that the way you would access that information to determine their benefit, or is there a different method for them? So in the program right now, you self-report what your earnings were for 2019, and then that's where the cross-match comes in after the fact with the tax department. So again, it's more about what they earned and are filing in 2019 return. They are able to upload certified documents that we'll use in conjunction with the tax department to validate after the fact, but right now they're able to self-report what they earned in 2019. That confuses me a little bit. Self-reporting to me just says that I tell you that this is my income, but uploading your documents is to me a little different from self-reporting because it requires actually a lot of work and it requires that you have them. So which is it? Do I just get to say my income was 40,000 last year or do I have to upload a document to demonstrate that which you later cross-check with tax? It's both. So as you go through the application, there are fields that you fill out for your income and then your uploading documentation that we will use after the fact to validate that the income you submitted wages earned in 2019 actually are in filing documentation. Do I have to upload the document before I get the benefit? No, this was discussed in yesterday's testimony. If you do have the document in on file with us, you get the minimum benefit amount and then once you upload your tax document, if you are eligible for additional benefits, your earnings, your benefit amount would, that would also include back paying any benefits that any additional benefits that you were owed for prior weeks. Robin. Thank you and thank you commissioner for coming and we appreciate all the work you guys have done under a lot of strain for a long time now. My questions are related to PUA also and I did watch the nine and a half minute video last night. So I saw, I saw how that worked. My first question is, do you have to be denied first in order to apply for PUA? Yes, that's a federal requirement that you have to be denied under general UI divisions to be eligible for PUA. But if someone applies, they are filling out a complete application that includes both general UI and PUA and they will have a determination as to whether they're eligible for general UI or not within 12 to 24 hours and they are not eligible for general UI most of the independent contractors and self-employed individuals will not be. They will then receive confirmation of that and then they can begin filing for it. So when I watched the video, there was nothing on there that said you have to be denied first but if I'm going to the form that they show on the video, does that cover it? Well, the denial I would say is also not necessarily something the actual applicant needs to be concerned with. I mean, we can certainly provide that additional information but filling out the complete application will make the determination as to whether they're going to get traditional unemployment insurance or PUA benefits. So again, from the claimant's perspective, I'm not sure they care which bucket they fall into as long as they're getting the benefits but we'll be making the determination back in. Except for the fact that people are very confused by it. Right, it sort of needs to be a... Everybody has to fill out this form first or something. Anyway, the other thing on the video that I was unclear because at the end it said to submit upload your tax returns but it implied that you had to upload your entire tax return not just the Schedule C or F or whatever you actually the appropriate pieces of the tax return. So that was a little unclear. So that, so I did follow up with our team yesterday. So that is guidance that has not been given from the federal government yet as to what level of documentation they would need for this population. So we have been telling people to upload all information that they have. So it cuts down on the need for us to then go back and ask for additional information but we have talked with the tax department as well but the feds have been silent in terms of giving guidance as to what level of tax documentation they will require. That's not, I appreciate that that's tricky but it doesn't, it's not, yeah, it's not good. I think that it was not good. It's a ton of information. You may have a spouse that has very complicated kinds of tax return information that's not even applying. But anyway, Jim, Aslan, you didn't get to finish up. Sorry. Robin asked my questions and I got good answers. So I'm all set with that. You're happy? Oh, peachy. Thank you. Beauty then. Are there any other questions that anyone has? You know, I'll just express, I know you have to go off to the press conference but express my concern about asking people to upload, which for some people is impossible or difficult, an enormous amount of information that doesn't seem to be useful in deciding the claim. And the, I went on the website, I didn't watch the video, I apologize for that but I didn't go on the website and it's not terribly clear, really sort of what is happening and what people are required to do yet. Hopefully it will be Emily and then Sam. Thanks. I'm curious with the combination of the self-certifying that happens at the beginning of the application process and then on the opposite end, the verification from the tax department, what the value is of the piece in the middle of people providing their tax information. I understand why you would need it if you didn't have the verification from the tax department and you have unclear federal guidelines but with the tax department's information available, it seems to me that you'd have that information available no matter what the federal guidelines look like because it's sitting there waiting for you. So yeah, let me just share about the process in its entirety in terms of how it would work. So the federal government requires some type of cross-match certification to occur, documentation if you will. And so the easiest way to get that upfront to be able to issue payments is by having people submit their 2019 tax returns which the federal government does require. And so we do not have the ability upfront to cross-match every claim that comes in against the tax department. And so our plan is to receive the documentation to be able to say that under pains and penalties of perjury, this person submitted this form as an accurate representation of what they earned in 2019 that removes liability from both the department and the state and then it will be the department that probably does sampling quality control after the fact where we're taking samples of this population looking at both what they submitted to the department and what they provided to the tax department to ensure that they didn't doctor the documentation that they provided. So it's not as if there's a seamless system that simply just allows us to validate what someone types into a box within our system to cross-match that in real time against the tax department. Adam Chair, can I jump in for one second on that question as well? Yeah, of course. So representative Corners, the other thing to consider there is we get about 85% of our personal income tax filings electronically. So for the other 15%, we won't have the info in our database to do an automatic check. So that would be another thing to consider in terms of if we didn't collect information upfront that could delay sending out payments. But just to keep that in mind as well. Thank you. Seems like those people are at a real disadvantage filing for the claim in the first place. Not anybody's fault, but Sam and then Robin. So I just want to be clear. Is it all through the new system that people can file and get denied? Or do they have to like file a regular wage unemployment claim through the old system and then file their self-employment income through the new system? So they are completing the, look at it this way. There's two steps in this process. Everybody has to go through step one at some point in time. And maybe people who have already completed the initial claims process prior to PUA going online. But that is an online form that then gets processed through our mainframe system. But if as part of the application, the electronic application, if they indicated that they were self-employed or an independent contractor, we simply move them into the second step of that process without waiting on the mainframe to have them complete the PUA application upfront. And that way we have all the information we need to move forward. But each night our mainframe will make a determination on those claims as to whether they are eligible or ineligible for general UI. And if they are ineligible for general UI, then they receive notification the following day saying that they were ineligible for general UI, but eligible for pandemic unemployment assistance and can now file their weekly claim under that program. Okay, thank you. Yep. Robin. Thank you. Well, that's, before I go to the original question I had, I wanna follow up with that. So it sounds like we have to fill out if you're eligible, you know you're eligible for PUA and not regular unemployment, you still have to file that initial unemployment claim. And then you have to go file the PUA. That's correct. That's the part that people are not. They say, I filed, I was told that I wasn't in the system and then I tried to file and they said I was already in the system or something like that. Right. So, and that's not clear on that video either. It looks like you just go right into the PUA system and don't bypass the initial claims process. No, I believe in the, I believe actually in the PUA video, you're actually starting from the beginning of the application process, which is the general UI process. And it actually leads you through. And then if you have clicked throughout the general UI process that you were self-employed, so let me put it this way. If you do not identify that you are self-employed, the application is about half the length. Right, okay. There are added questions under the application if you selected that you were self-employed. So you actually do only go into one place and it just works all the way through. That's what I'm trying to get at. Okay, that's better than two different places. Yeah, it's one place, but it's an expanded application if you select your self-employment. That's much better. I like that answer a lot better. So the other question I have is back for Commissioner Bolio. And you brought it up, Craig, just a minute ago with the 85% of the people file electronically, which is much easier for people who are trying to collect UI. But earlier on, you had said there's a decrease in paid preparer filings that you noted was fairly significant. And I'm wondering if that's gonna mean an increase in paper filings because people aren't using a paid preparer. I don't know if I would say that that's definite at this point. I think the first step of that would be if people decide that instead of using a paid preparer, they're gonna self-prepare. But at that point, if they're gonna self-prepare, there's still a very high likelihood that they would just electronically file through whatever commercial software they used. I actually don't readily have the stats of self-prepared versus paid-prepared electronic filing rates. That's an interesting question, but I do not think they're drastically different. Okay, great, thank you. Emily. Commissioner Harrington, I know the speaker suggested to some period in the past, I've lost track of what week it is, but I think a really good process map would go a super long way in helping people understand all of this. And I know ADS does a lot of good mapping of what customer experiences are, but I think that a lot of the confusion just lies in people not being able to understand step by step and what could go wrong at each level. And just if there's that transparency, I think would be really helpful for all of us if anyone has a moment for that. Yeah, I will, I made a note. It's not a clean process and it's not a straight line, but I think we can do our best to clean it up to make it as simple as possible. I think it's the edges of the unclean process where the process map would be the most helpful, that knowing what has gone wrong, when something has gone wrong and what to do when that goes wrong. Yeah, the problem is that there are hundreds of possible... As we've learned. Results, right? So yeah, so let me see what I can put together and then bring it back. We've all gotten emails about each of those hundred possibilities. I think the other thing I would underscore is the fact that for somebody who's self-employed, they may never ever have gone to your website or filed for unemployment before. So the fact that they have to go through that unemployment, old system and get rejected makes no sense to them. So I understand that that's what they have to do. So there needs to be something, I think, that is very clear about what they're doing and why they're doing it. And I'm hearing from a lot of people who just have never had any interaction with this system before. Yeah, well, from the claimant's perspective, there's nothing they need to do in the old system. It's a brand new application. Once they fill out that application, they'll then be instructed on where to go next. So there's actually nothing they have to fill out in the old mainframe system to be eligible for PUA. That's something we do on the back end. Well, maybe perhaps I misunderstood it. I thought they had to file for unemployment and be rejected before they could file for PUA. That's correct. And that application is a brand new electronic form. So they don't actually experience the old system at all. Then I miss spoke about it. I'm not talking about being on a particular platform. I'm saying that they've never filed a claim for unemployment before. So it doesn't make sense to them to be asked what their wages are because they're walking in there saying, I'm not a wage, I don't have wages. I've never lost my wages. I've never filed for unemployment before. Why am I being asked about this? Understood, thank you. So I think it's that piece that is confusing people. I understand that that's the way you have to do it, but if there was a clear explanation for that, that would be helpful. I know you have to go. Any last things you wanna share with us? Thank you, and I appreciate your coming. I'll just say, sorry that technology didn't work and wasn't able to do video, but let me just share my appreciation to everybody on the call. I know it's not ideal. I know it's frustrating. It's frustrating for us in many ways, having to work within the federal guidelines to the best of our ability. Some requirements are more stringent than others, but certainly appreciate the feedback. I have taken notes and we'll bring those back to the team to see what we can do to help make it as seamless a process as we can for the applicant. So thank you very much. Well, and I really appreciate the fact that you've basically stood up a program that never existed before and really a very short timeframe. And we want you to succeed with this because it matters a lot to a lot of people and we know how hard your folks are working. Absolutely, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So committee, Craig Bolio is still with us. I don't know, Craig, if you had a couple of things you wanted to add. I see you. I have one other topic. I could just bring up to flag for the committee at this point. The loan forgiveness from the paycheck protection program is federally not taxable, but will require some kind of link up to not be taxable at the state level. We're analyzing if our normal link up will do it or if we need to add some kind of language. Normally we do a retroactive link up, right? Where we do it in the season that the returns are actually filing and there's an expectation that we'll do a link up. The only thing that gives this any kind of added urgency in my eyes is that the CARES Act provided a number of different programs for businesses but it provided barriers that you can only qualify for one, right? You can't take the employee retention credit from section 2301 if you apply or if you take money from the paycheck protection program. So, if there is an opportunity for us to provide certain data businesses who are analyzing what's the best program for them to utilize, the state taxability of the forgiveness of the PPP may factor into that decision. So that's just something I wanted to flag for the committee that may be worth dealing with earlier than normal. So wondering, I've been a little reluctant to do the global link up until we know exactly what we're linking up to because there's so many pieces moving around but is the taxability of the long protection program. Did I get the name right? Is that something that we can do just that and not link up to everything else? It's possible. I can't say that with certainty right now. Our attorneys are sort of figuring out what does it take to link up to this? But I'm happy to have that discussion once we have that answer. Well, I'm gonna look around for head nodding or head shaking on the part of the committee but I think we would certainly be interested in following the federal rule in terms of the taxability. But I'm still sort of reluctant to link up to everything just cause there's so much that we don't know. Well, let me take that feedback back to our attorneys and see if that's a possibility that we can carve out. All right. Scott. Yeah, Craig. As far as the different stimulus payments that the that citizens are gonna get $600 a week or the $1,200, $2,400. Are those gonna be considered taxable income? My understanding on this is that the $12 and $2,400 stimulus payments are not taxable. I don't know the answer to the extra 600 of UI benefit. I'm sorry, I don't have that info offhand. I guess my only part of that conversation is regarding the PPP or the Injury Grant or the Injury Grant is, I mean, that's basically business revenue. I mean, they are substituting that for revenue they would be making if they were selling stuff. So maybe we do wanna follow the federal government, but boy, when you're talking about PPP and all, everything this is gonna come out to, you know, $5, $6 billion or more that businesses are substituting for their revenue. And if we, I mean, they're substituting it for revenue. What's the thought? Yeah, Graham, did you have something? You wanted to jump in on? I'm glad you did. Yeah, I just your responses representative facts question. I believe the $600 is taxable income because it's part of the unemployment insurance program and unemployment insurance is usually a taxable benefit. That would match my intuition as well, but I'm just wasn't certain. Okay, there's always something more complicated to think about. No, are there any other questions anyone has or things they wanna, we've got lots of staff here, Abby's here, Joyce is here, Mark is here, Mark is here. Anyone wanna throw an issue out there or ask a question before we, finish up? Jim, that's on. Yeah. Jim's having trouble with his blue hand today, but I got it. I got it, I got it. I would just say that we're going round and round this thing, which actually is beneficial because the more times I hear it or hear the various nuances, the better I think that I understand it. Which are you talking about? Well, all of the stuff we've talked about this morning, the more times we ask questions on similar but not the same topics, the better I think that I understand this conundrum as a whole. And I hope that turns out to be true. Right. Mark, I'm gonna, are you look like you're here? Mark. I'm here. Hi. I think the committee has seen the change in the fiscal 20 Ed fund revenue, but I don't know that they've actually seen it as a committee. Do you wanna describe what happened and why it's shifted? I'm just, just to the FY 2020 outlook. Yeah. Do you want me to pop it up on a screen or just talk about it? I just think we've all seen it, but I don't know that we've actually had it presented. So why don't you flag it for us? Okay. Sosha, could you allow me to put up a document? Yes. Hold on. I'll make you a co-host there. You should be able to now. Okay. Okay. Can everybody see this? Yep. Have you seen this? Okay. So this is an education fund outlook that we've gone over before, but we have updated it with the new revenue forecast that Graham talked about. So it's been updated through the 17th. You know, you guys are familiar with this. So I won't go as slow as normal, but if you take a look at the lines three, four, five and six, you can see that there's a downgrade has gone from $89 million down to $69.1 million. So that's an improvement in those non-property tax monies that come into the education fund. And if we look at the bottom line impact, you can see here was the prior surplus. I mean, here was the prior stabilization reserve. Here was the prior surplus that's now gone. And the stabilization reserve is down to minus 19.9. It had been as low as 39.5. So we are in a better position going forward into FY 21 when we thought with all the normal caveats I've gone over before. So I won't do it again unless you want me to. They'll listen to the bottom of the page here, but we have some, that actually, that 53 hasn't been changed. It's about $43 million now has been deferred. This balance sheet assumes that all that money is collected. We also assume that all the property tax money that remains outstanding for FY 20 is collected. So in some senses, this is a best case kind of outlook. So any questions on you that? I don't see questions, but I, you know, just to remind the committee that we looked at a, we looked at an idea for being able to use the COVID-19 money towards fiscal 21 property tax rates. We haven't seen anything from the feds that allow, that would suggest that we can actually put money into the education fund. So we're still trying to figure out ways that we can support property tax payers, pay for schools and not have 24, 25 cent tax increases in 21. And so when we get a little better guidance and a little bit more information on the revenue side for 21, we'll come back to that question and see if there's something that the committee can call us around. Robin. Thank you. So it looks like the reason this was changed was about 20 million in this sales and use tax. We think we're gonna get more than we originally had put in. Is that, is that where the change is, Mark? Yeah, Graham could better answer that question than me. I'm just taking the numbers from the forecast and plugging them into the ballot sheet. Yeah. You sit there. I don't think our committee ever did actually get a presentation on this as timing happened, I think. So maybe if Graham's there, he can update us. I've heard it, but I can't remember where I heard it, but I don't think it was here. So anyways, if Graham's not around, I can point out it's mostly sales and use tax and that's because 100% of the sales tax comes into the education fund. The purchasing use tax and the meals and your room's tax are splinter taxes. So you're only seeing partially part of the impact there. And that's one third purchase in use and one quarter of the meals and rooms tax. So the impact of those two taxes on the fund isn't as great. And the lottery transfer has gone down. I assume that's because people aren't out shopping and stopping at the community stores to pick up ticks and stuff as much as usual. That number often goes up during an economic downturn. So that may change as we get down the line. But right now let's take it out being sold. And Graham is here, Mark, if you want to jump in. Yeah, I can jump in. Tom Kovetz sent us a new revenue forecast on April 17th, previous revenue forecast, but I think it was right before April 14th. And the biggest change is in the education fund. And as representatives shot pointed out, it's in the sales and use tax, which is about $20 million better than what it was on April 14th. And I've been told that the reasoning for that was just technical changes to the modeling and then some additional small economic stuff that they updated. So instead of it being $89 million down, like it was on April 14th, it's now $69 million down. And that's what you see in Mark's education outlook. But the other two funds, the general fund, the transportation fund are largely unchanged. And so you're looking at about $61 million down and just economic loss in the general fund, $42 million down in the transportation fund of economic loss. And that's before you start to consider any of the sort of deferrals, which would be another approximately $170 million across both those funds, plus another $41 million in the fund. And the issue in the ed fund continues to now, we've talked around this as Jim was saying, we keep going around and around it. We haven't really come into a solution yet, but the issue is how we get through fiscal 20 and what kind of deficit do we have at the end of 20? And even with these revised figures, we still have a deficit at the end of 20. And what then carries over into 21, what does 21 look like in terms of sales tax revenue? And what kind of ocean can we come with that ensures that schools get the money that they need to educate a bunch of kids who have already missed months of school this year. And how do we raise that money in an economic environment where we know that taxpayers certainly don't have any extra money to pay in on their property taxes because the property taxes is our most stable source normally. So that's still the problem. And we've been waiting for guidance from the Treasury, US Treasury that might allow us to actually put money into the education fund. It doesn't look like we're gonna get that. So we're still looking at a workaround that might accomplish all those really impossible things that we've got to accomplish. Any questions, comments? No, okay. So we'll see everybody again on Wednesday. Do we have a floor session before that? I can't remember anymore. I would have. Oh, whatever. Everybody can unmute for a minute. So we'll see everybody here in the committee on Wednesday. Maybe we'll see people this afternoon at two at house education when they present. And the only reason we would have, probably the only reason we would have another meeting is if we have the bill dealing with the penalties and interest on property taxes. Janet, this is Joey. Do we have to have an invite to go to that meeting this afternoon? I think you have one. But if you don't, make sure you've got it. Yeah. Okay, thank you. I can send it to you, Joey. Thank you, Sergeant. Yeah, the issue around the school budgets is complicated. And so it's been difficult to try to come up with a resolution. All right. All right, I'm going to end the live stream now.