Implementing the Statutory Allocation of Tax Revenue after Annexation

As discussed in the Commission’s interim report on Public Chapter 441, the Growth Policy Act (Public Chapter 1101, Acts of 1998) allows any increase in revenue from local option sales taxes and beer wholesale taxes collected in newly annexed areas to go the annexing city, but requires the amount already being collected to continue to go to the county for 15 years.  This has not happened with the wholesale beer tax revenue; all of it has gone to the annexing cities.  It may not be possible to calculate the amount improperly paid to cities in the past, but this error can now be avoided using information available to local governments and the Department of Revenue and it should be.