February 21, 2025
Well Past Time to Repeal the Grocery Tax
By: John Crowder
In December of 2024, the Mountain States Policy Center released their much-anticipated results of The Idaho Poll, conducted from November 26 through December 6. The poll revealed that Idahoans overwhelmingly continue to support grocery tax repeal, with 87% responding favorably to the question, “Do you favor repealing the state’s grocery sales tax on food?”
Let that number sink in. Eighty-seven percent.
You would think that with such incredibly high favorability, indicating overwhelming support from the state’s voters and with our elected officials routinely campaigning on tax relief for Idahoans, grocery tax repeal would be the easiest bill in the world to pass. Yet, it doesn’t. Year after year, grocery tax repeal is brought up by a small number of legislators while leadership ensures that it goes nowhere.
This is true, once again, in the 2025 legislative session. Instead of simply repealing the grocery tax, the legislature is moving forward with a bill to increase a credit for taxes paid through your Idaho income tax filing. To get the maximum amount possible, it calls for income tax filers to, “submit scanned copies of sales tax receipts of qualifying food purchases along with the tax return or application.” Seriously?
Taxing food is one of the most regressive ways possible to raise money for government. The less money you make, the more this tax hurts you. Telling taxpayers that they need to save, itemize, and submit receipts for a full year to get some of their money back sounds like a cruel joke, but that’s what is written into HB231.
Now is the time to contact your legislators and demand grocery tax repeal. Let’s hope that Idaho’s legislative leaders have not already made up their minds and remain unwilling to take a step that would bring IMMEDIATE tax relief to the Idaho families that most need it.
Finally, you need to remember how your legislators act on grocery tax repeal when it comes time to choose who you want to represent you in 2026. When that time comes, vote for those who have enough of a spine to put the taxpayers’ needs over the desires of an ever-expanding government.
