HELENA — A House committee on Tuesday endorsed a major tax simplification bill after adding 10 amendments, including one that would reduce state individual income taxes by $15 million a year.

The House Taxation Committee voted 15-5 to concur with Senate Bill 171, by Sen. Bruce Tutvedt, R-Kalispell, as it was amended. The bill now heads to the House floor for debate.

Some members of the committee voiced concern that the amendments added Tuesday had complicated a bill intended to simplify taxes.

Rep. Al Olszewski, R-Kalispell, said, “I’m confused at what we did. The simplification of taxes is to stay with what we have had.”

“I think we pulled a move that the Senate would do: Take something and make it a little bit worse,” said Rep. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings. But he then added he would vote for the much-amended bill anyway.

Rep. Kathleen Williams, D-Bozeman, urged committee members to vote for the bill, saying: “As long as it stays alive, there can still be negotiations.”

Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson, offered Tutvedt’s amendment to the bill, and the committee passed it, 19-1.

Tutvedt told the committee, “This puts $15 million per year tax cut in the bill, gets rid of all losers (who would pay higher taxes under the bill). Almost everyone gets a tax cut.”

Asked about the amendment, Dan Dodds, an economist with the Revenue Department, told the committee, “Most people in the lower brackets would end up with zero taxable income.”

Afterward, Tutvedt said $30 million in added tax cuts over the next two years would be about 10 percent of the estimated increase in individual income taxes that Gov. Steve Bullock’s budget office has projected over the next two years.

Tutvedt’s bill may face a tough hill to climb. Bullock already has vetoed two other income tax cut bills sponsored by Republicans, leaving only Tutvedt’s bill remaining.

“It’s the last one alive and it’s a good simplification bill, with a small tax cut we can offer,” Tutvedt said. “Why can’t some go back to taxpayers?”

Tutvedt said he has been visiting periodically with the Democratic governor about including the tax cut in the bill, but wasn’t sure about the bill’s prospects.

In 2013, Bullock vetoed a similar Tutvedt bill, but it had larger tax reductions in it.

Revenue Director Mike Kadas, representing the governor, opposed the bill at the hearing last week.

As amended, the bill would have two income tax brackets and rates, 4.7 percent to 6.1 percent, with separate rates tables for those taxpayers who file a joint return, who file as head of household and who file as single or married filing separately.

Under current law, there are seven brackets and rates, which range from 1 percent to 6.9 percent.

The revised bill would lower the corporate tax rate to 6.5 percent from the current 6.75 percent.

As proposed, Tutvedt’s bill would have terminated a number of tax credits, which are dollar-for-dollar reductions in tax liabilities. Among them are tax credits for energy conservation, alternative energy production and alternative energy systems.

The committee voted to restore one tax break that Tutvedt had sought to end, a credit and tax deduction for recycling. No attempts were made to restore the energy-related tax credits back in SB171.

Williams successfully added to the bill a provision to re-enact the Big Sky on the Big Screen Act, which sunsets on Jan. 1. It provides tax credits for certain movie or television production companies for filming movies, documentaries. TV programs, commercials and magazine advertising in Montana.

Williams had a separate bill to re-enact these tax breaks, but it was tabled by the House Appropriations Committee after the full House on a preliminary vote.

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