SIDNEY -- Attorney and lobbyist Korby Gilbertson spoke in Sidney Tuesday evening regarding the EPIC proposal.

EPIC, Eliminating Property, Income, and inheritance taxes, and Corporate taxes, is a proposal to restructure Nebraska's tax structure 

"If you've seen any of the pro-EPIC presentations, they will talk about LB79 and AM314. Those were the two things that were introduced two years ago. They also introduced two constitutional amendments. Those two constitutional amendments are what now you see in the form of petitions being circulated," Gilbertson said.

Gilbertson is an attorney and lobbyist with Radcliffe, Gilbertson & Brady law firm in Lincoln. She said there are two petitions because Nebraska has a constitutional requirement of one subject, single-subject rule. 

"So they had to separate the two issues. One eliminates our current tax system, and the second one says 'here's how you can apply that tax," she said.

Gilbertson said the best situation is if voters would approve or deny both proposals.

"Ideally, if this would get sufficient signatures by July to be on the November ballot, hopefully both of these would get addressed or adopted by voters because if only one of them did we'd have a whole other can of worms to try to figure things out," she said.

She said the consumption tax, a part of the EPIC proposal, will impact consumers in less obvious ways. She said supporters of EPIC say eliminating property and personal taxes will increase discretionary income; some estimate as much as $50,000 for every man, woman and child. She questions how many people would have an additional $50,000 in disposable income, even without paying property taxes.

She was asked about the future of funds such as LB840 if EPIC passes. She said much of the funds like LB840 and CDBG grants are federally funded. Another person asked if the plan is poor or if it needs a method to execute it.

"I think that we definitely need to broaden our sales tax base, and we could do that right now, would add about a hundred different things to our sales tax base, and make a couple billion dollars more in sales tax, be able to actually make major reductions in property tax," Gilbertson said.

She said the estimates from the Tax Foundation and Open Sky is Nebraska would need a 22.1 percent sales tax to maintain current tax revenue. She added that programs such as TIF would go away, and without an alternative source of funding to support TIF, a community would default on the loan.

She said there are answers, if everyone would come together at the table.