I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
New Mexico isn’t a lone actor in its bid to tax cigarettes at a greater rate. As you may recall, the Legislature passed a 75-cent hike to the state’s 91-cent cigarette tax last week to help address next year’s…
The state budget may trim roughly $100 million on paper, but it leaves the details of how to reduce expenses to state agencies. So come July, when these changes take effect, what happens? Will longer lines form at motor vehicle offices thanks to a 4.2 percent reduction at the state Taxation and Revenue Department? Will fewer teachers greeting students this August? Meanwhile, how will New Mexicans accept paying more at grocery stores and in state income tax. No one knows for sure.
The House approved a 75-cent hike to state’s cigarette tax Thursday, sending the last piece of a state budget package to Gov. Bill Richardson.
On Thursday afternoon, Senators voted 25 to 15 to pass a 75-cent hike to the state cigarette tax.
That levy will raise $33 million, with about $11 million of that revenue earmarked for pre-kindergarten programs administered by the state Public…
About $11 million that the state could collect from a proposed a 75-cent increase to the state’s cigarette tax would be partly used to fund early childhood development under a proposal a powerful state Senate committee approved Thursday morning. But…
The New Mexico Independent live blogged the final day of the first special session of 2010 from gavel to gavel. Click the headline to read a transcript.
Just after midnight, the House passed a bill that would add 75 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes—including smokes sold on tribal lands. The bill, which is estimated to bring in $33 million, has been called the cornerstone…
The Senate Finance committee approved a bill Tuesday that combines most of the tax measures state lawmakers have contemplated during this week’s special session — and some that they haven’t.
Lawmakers voted along party lines to pass the measure that…
A bill to boost the state’s cigarette tax by 75 cents cleared an important legislative committee Tuesday afternoon, after a bit of arm-twisting and some last-minute horse trading by two Democratic lawmakers. The sheer effort to push the bill out of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee gives one a sense of how difficult the New Mexico Legislature is finding it to pass out a state budget.
The 2010 special session completed a second day and the Independent was there to live blog from the House and Senate floors until the very end of the House hearing in the early morning hours. Both the Senate and House took up significant bills and the Independent was there to cover the debate.
We’re podcasting! The Independent’s Gwyneth Doland, Trip Jennings and Matthew Reichbach recapped the first day of the 2010 special legislative session in a special audio format. The budget! The defeat of the cigarette tax! It’s all in there!
For the second time in less than a month the New Mexico House has stubbed out a cigarette tax. On Monday night the House Taxation and Revenue Committee voted not to pass along a bill that would have added 75…
The state budget deal legislative leaders reach may generate $233 million in new revenue, in part by taking back $70-$100 million it has been sending each year to New Mexico cities to help compensate for the lack of a food tax. In return, cities would get the authority to tax food up to 2 percent. Also in the works: education cuts, a gross receipts tax hike and two versions of a cigarette tax hike.
Legislative leaders have struck a budget deal, and just in time. Details are few, but Gov. Bill Richardson saw it Friday and pronounced it good. Here are the general outlines of the deal. The recently struck deal involves raising $233 million in revenue. That revenue would come from increasing the state’s gross receipts, cigarette and compensating taxes. Certain foods also would be taxed for the first time in years, although it’s unclear what food items would fall under the state’s gross receipts tax. The proposed budget agreement also relies on spending decreases. State agencies are expected to shave spending. Public education, meanwhile, would be reduced by about 1 percent.
The House Taxation and Revenue Committee on Wednesday night rejected by a seven to eight vote a Senate proposal to raise New Mexico’s cigarette tax.
New Mexico would tax food for the first time in years, add $1 to the state cigarette tax and net taxes from out-of-state owners of business partnerships on income earned here.
Meanwhile, state agencies would get fewer dollars and several hundred jobs would disappear from state government. That mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes was part of a $5.276 billion state budget proposal that the Senate passed 25 to 17 early Sunday morning to help close a projected shortfall of several hundred million dollars next year.
Cigarettes would be taxed at a greater rate while state employees and educational workers would avoid paying an additional 1 percent toward retirement in the latest version of a state budget proposal from the state Senate.
Under legislation that cleared…
Soft drinks, medical marijuana, even that book you want to buy online could get taxed under various proposals filed this week in the early days of the 2010 legislative session. Meanwhile, buying a pack of cigarettes may get a lot more costly, too. Lawmakers have dropped roughly 280 bills in the opening days of the session–and quite a few of those proposals are tax bills.
The Santa Fe City Council approved a new ordinance allowing red-light cameras in the City Different, The Santa Fe New Mexican reports. A last-minute effort was defeated to amend the ordinance to make it easier for the city to…
