ORS 291.195 Policy for financial expenditure planning

The Legislative Assembly hereby declares that the ability to make fiscally sound and effective spending decisions has been enhanced by requiring agencies and programs to develop performance measures and to evaluate all General Fund, State Lottery Fund and other expenditures in accordance with these performance measures. Fiscal pressure on this state requires

even greater accountability and necessitates a review of the fairness and efficiency of all tax deductions, tax exclusions, tax subtractions, tax exemptions, tax deferrals, preferential tax rates and tax credits. These types of tax expenditures are similar to direct government expenditures because they provide special benefits to favored individuals or businesses, and thus result in higher tax rates for all individuals.

The Legislative Assembly further finds that 76 percent of property in this state is exempt from property taxation and that income tax expenditures total billions of dollars per biennium. An accurate and accountable state budget should reflect the true costs of tax expenditures and should fund only those tax expenditures that are effective and efficient uses of limited tax dollars.

The Legislative Assembly declares that it is in the best interest of this state to have prepared a biennial report of tax expenditures that will allow the public and policy makers to identify and analyze tax expenditures and to periodically make criteriabased decisions on whether the expenditures should be continued. The tax expenditure report will allow tax expenditures to be debated in conjunction with online budgets and will result in the elimination of inefficient and inappropriate tax expenditures, resulting in greater accountability by state government and a lowering of the tax burden on all taxpayers.