Idaho businesses won’t get a $17 million personal property tax break in 2009 because the state’s general fund last fiscal year grew less than the 5% target needed for the relief to take effect.  The general fund grew only 3.46% to $2.9 billion as Idaho’s economy began faltering in late 2007.

The proposed break - to allow Idaho businesses to exempt the first $100,000 worth of computers, fork lifts and office equipment - would have eliminated personal property tax payments for some 60,000 Idaho businesses and reduced them for the rest of the state’s companies.

But lawmakers who passed the compromise legislation in April during the waning days of the 2008 session insisted on the 5% growth trigger to ensure the state had ample money to reimburse counties for a cut in revenue from personal property taxes and still have enough to cover schools, roads and other state services in the face of a stumbling economy.

Senator Brad Little, a Republican from Emmett, says there could be a movement in the 2009 Legislature to cut the trigger or eliminate it - to make it easier for businesses to get relief. (AP)