In late January, the Iowa Senate passed unanimously file number 303, a bill to eliminate the state’s income tax on veteran’s retirement pay 46 yes votes to 0 no votes.

District 24 State Senator Jerry Behn is in complete support of the bill and talks about how this legislation will help drive his desire to keep retired veterans in Iowa.

“And so we’ll be more competitive now with other states that quite frankly have no income tax or they have now income tax on retirement income.  It’ll allow our veterans to stay in Iowa and not be subjected to what I’m going to call an income tax penalty.”

The bill passing through the Senate came in response following Governor Branstad’s State of the State address to the full congress last month.

Behn comments that when an important issue comes up for vote like eliminating income tax on veteran’s retirement pay, it’s great to see legislators from both parties agree.

“And it also illustrates how quickly we can accomplish things when the partisan shackles are removed and we just get together and it passed 46-0 and so that really illustrates how quick we can go when we get on with it.”

Behn’s ultimate goal is to entirely remove income tax on all retirement pay to really make Iowa competitive with other states.