West Baton Rouge Parish’s police jury may create a sales tax district and levy a sales and use tax only after voter approval, subject to a 1% cap and other stated limits.
§338.170. West Baton Rouge Parish Sales Tax District No. 1; sales tax authorized A. The police jury of West Baton Rouge Parish may create a sales tax district which shall be designated as the West Baton Rouge Parish Sales Tax District No. 1. The district shall contain all or any portions of the territory contained within the present boundaries of the parish. No municipality, or any portion thereof, shall be included within the district unless the governing authority of the municipality concurs, by resolution duly adopted, in its inclusion. Any municipality that is created after the effective date of this Section may elect to be covered by this Section or be excluded from this Section, but only after the question of the tax shall have been submitted to the qualified electors of the municipality at an election conducted pursuant to the election laws of the state. B. The district shall be created by ordinance of the police jury of West Baton Rouge Parish, which shall set forth the area or areas of the parish included in the district. The police jury shall be the governing authority of the district, its domicile shall be the regular meeting place of the police jury, and the officers of the police jury shall be the officers of the district. C.(1) Subject to approval at an election as hereafter provided, the police jury, as the governing authority of the district, may levy within the district a sales and use tax not exceeding one percent, which tax may exceed the limitation set forth in Article VI, Section 29(A) of the Constitution of Louisiana. (2) The tax shall be imposed by ordinance of the police jury and shall be levied upon the sale at retail, the use, the lease or rental, the consumption, the distribution and storage for use or consumption of tangible personal property, and upon the sales of services within the district, all as presently or hereafter defined in R.S. 47:301 through 317. (3) Except where inapplicable, the procedure established by R.S. 47:301 through 317 shall be followed in the imposition, collection, and enforcement of the tax, and procedural details necessary to supplement the provisions of those Sections and to make said provisions applicable to the tax herein authorized shall be fixed in the ordinance of the police jury imposing the tax. (4) The tax shall be imposed and collected uniformly throughout the district. D.(1) The tax collected within the district shall be distributed to the parish and each of the municipalities within the district, on a per capita basis as determined by the police jury, based on the population as determined by the division of business and economic research of Louisiana Tech University under the most recent federal-state cooperative program for local population estimates. The distribution formula shall be recomputed on the same basis within two months after the release of updated estimates, and such recomputation shall include any municipality which may have been included in the district since the previous recomputation. (2) The proceeds of the tax may be used by the parish and each of the municipalities for general operating expenses and for public improvements, but the proceeds of the tax, whether payable to the parish or to any municipality, shall be dedicated solely for the purposes approved by the electorate, including the funding of the proceeds of such tax into bonds in the manner provided by Subpart F, Part III, Chapter 4, Subtitle II of Title 39 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, which funding may be submitted to the voters in the same proposition the tax is submitted. E. The ordinance imposing the tax herein authorized shall be adopted by the police jury only after the question of the imposition of the tax shall have been submitted to the qualified electors of the district at an election conducted in accordance with the election laws of the state and a majority of those voting in the election shall have voted in favor of the imposition of the tax. An election for the purpose provided in this Section shall be submitted to the electors of the district on July 24, 1984 or on a date provided in R.S. 18:402(F)(2). All expenses of the election shall be borne by the district. F. Nothing contained in this Section shall be construed to affect the purposes for which the proceeds of any sales tax authorized or levied prior to the effective date of this Section shall be used, and the disposition of the proceeds of sales taxes heretofore authorized or levied by the police jury shall be made in accordance with the authorization under which such tax was levied and is being collected. G. If the tax proposed under this Section is not approved by the electors at such election, this Section shall be null. Acts 1984, No. 43, §1, eff. June 5, 1984; Redesignated from R.S. 33:2738.62 pursuant to Acts 2011, No. 248, §4.