Indiana lawmakers kill proposal to eliminate 'tampon tax'
In the final hours of the 2024 legislative session, lawmakers stripped from a bill a proposal to exempt menstrual products from taxation, known as the "tampon tax."
Long the swansong of Democrats, a Republican this year opted to take on the issue of eliminating the tampon tax in Indiana. Rep. Peggy Mayfield, R-Martinsville, offered the amendment onto Senate Bill 256 when the bill was in the House.
But as the two chambers worked out a compromise for the final version of that bill, the tampon tax didn't make the cut — ironically on International Women's Day — due to concerns over its fiscal impact in a non-budget year. Nor did it find a new home in another bill, Mayfield said.
"The positive: It made it further than it ever has," she wrote in an email to IndyStar. "The next step is to reintroduce it in next year's budget session to see if we can keep building momentum and addressing concerns of legislators."
Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Mishawaka, said the provision was taken out of his bill because it was unrelated to the bill's original content, per the Senate's rules.
Other late-adds that were removed from Senate Bill 256 because of that rule include language addressing the Medicaid shortfall and resulting cuts impacting families caring for children with medically complex conditions; and language banning sister city deals with U.S. adversaries like China.
The Medicaid language, albeit a softer version of it, landed in House Bill 1120 by the end of the night Friday, as did the sister city ban.
Asked whether he would have supported tampon-tax elimination inside another bill, Mishler demurred. He said he probably wouldn't vote a bill down because of that provision alone; at the same time, he prefers to leave finances alone as much as possible this session.
"I don't care what the tax is, what we're taking the tax away from," he said Friday. "That's really not the biggest issue. It's that it adds a fiscal, and I try to hold tight on that the best I can."
Democrats have often floated the idea through bills or amendments but have been turned down for similar reasons.
This year in the House, there seemed to be some change of heart among Republicans on the issue. They "failed to come up with a good reason not to" eliminate the tax, Mayfield told IndyStar last week.
Indiana has a 7% sales tax, so eliminating the tax on period products would reduce state revenues by a little over $4 million a year, according to the Legislative Services Agency.
Twenty-four states plus Washington D.C. already exempt period products from their sales tax, according to the Alliance for Period Supplies.
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at [email protected] or follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @kayla_dwyer17.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'Tampon tax' elimination proposal dies in Indiana General Assembly