Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter signed the first bill of the 2018 Legislative Session.
The legislation is expected to save employers a total of $115 million over the next three years by reducing a key component in how Idaho calculates the unemployment insurance tax rate. It would also reduce the cost of unemployment insurance taxes by 30 percent.
“I congratulate and thank the Legislature for accepting my challenge to make this commonsense tax relief ‘Job One’ for the 2018 session,” Otter said. “Idaho’s job creators large and small will benefit from this needed adjustment, and our already booming economy will get another boost as a result.”
As of Dec. 2017, Idaho's unemployment trust fund had a balance of $781 million, well beyond the level needed for reserves to pay unemployment insurance benefits during economic downturns.
House Bill 335 passed unanimously in the House and Senate.
The bill contains an emergency clause, making it retroactive to January 1, 2018.
