The House Administration Committee has advanced two bills that will be heard by the full State House during the Extraordinary Session on Thursday, November 13th. One measure, House Bill 255, is to protect Delaware’s budget from a major shortfall.
Officials from the House Majority Caucus say “Delaware is a rolling conformity state, meaning its tax code automatically incorporates most changes to the federal Internal Revenue Code (IRC) unless the General Assembly specifically acts to “decouple” from them. Without legislative action, the state automatically adopts several new and costly corporate tax provisions included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA), which would drain hundreds of millions from Delaware’s budget over the next three years.”
“HB 255 would decouple Delaware’s tax code from these provisions to preserve the state’s fiscal stability and protect funding for schools, healthcare, infrastructure, and public safety. The legislation does not eliminate depreciation of property or expensing, but instead adjusts the timing of deductions affected by the OBBBA, maintaining the former requirement that these deductions be spread out over multiple years rather than claimed as a single, massive upfront tax break.”
The other, Senate Bill 206, is to extend property tax deadlines in New Castle County to the end of the calendar year. This bill is part of the General Assembly’s ongoing effort to ease the burden on residents following Delaware’s first-in-a-generation property reassessment.
On October 30, the Court of Chancery upheld the terms of House Bill 242, legislation passed in August that allowed school districts to set different tax rates for residential and non-residential properties, a change that resulted in lower bills for many homeowners. HB 242 also originally extended the tax payment deadline to November 30.
“Although the Court of Chancery ruled in the County’s favor and upheld House Bill 242, instructions from the Chancellor issued in her opinion means that the County now has to include some additional information in its tax bills,” explained Sen. Jack Walsh, Senate Prime Sponsor of SB 206.
“That combination of factors prompted New Castle County to ask the General Assembly to extend the deadline for property tax collections to the end of the year — and that’s exclusively what Senate Bill 206 does.”
