The tax on pensions wasn’t popular when it passed in 2011 and only became more detested by senior citizens, Republicans and Democrats over the last eight years.

The House of Representatives on Thursday took the first of many steps to eliminate the tax, when the House Tax Policy Committee voted 14-1 to get rid of it on most pension incomes.

“Repealing the change in the 2011 pension tax has been a point of discussion for many years,” said Rep. Joseph Bellino, R-Monroe, who sponsored the legislation. “It’s time to stop balancing the budget on the backs of seniors.”

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The change, however, would mean a $330 million hit to the state’s budget, according to a House Fiscal Agency analysis of the bill, and some Democrats wondered whether there was anything identified in the proposed legislation to replace that revenue.

Bellino said he thinks there's room to absorb the cut in a $56 billion state budget that also includes a rainy day fund that exceeds $1 billion.

Jeff Guilfoyle, deputy director of the state Treasury Department, told committee members that the measure had significant budget implications and it was too soon to take a position on the bill until Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who supports the pension tax elimination, presents her budget to the Legislature on Tuesday.

Whitmer's budget message comes at a time, however, when there are significant pressures on her to come up with money for her signature campaign promise to “fix the damn roads,” and revenues coming into the state from a variety of taxes has been relatively flat.

The 2011 legislation pushed by former Gov. Rick Snyder right after he took office didn't create a new tax, but it removed total and partial tax exemptions for income from public and private pensions. Snyder pushed through the pension tax and tied it to a business tax cut as a way to bring more fairness to the state’s tax code.

It created a complicated three-tier system that phased in the tax depending on the year a taxpayer was born. The new bill gets rid of the three-tier system and allows pensioners to claim exemptions on up to $51,570 of pension income for single filers and up to $103,140 for joint filers.

Although the pension tax was approved by a Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Snyder, its repeal now has bipartisan support. Rep. Isaac Robinson, D-Detroit, was the only committee member to vote against the bill. He said he supports getting rid of the pension tax, but voted against the bill because he thinks it should go through the Appropriations committee's budgeting process.

Measures to repeal the tax have been introduced in nearly every legislative session since it was approved, but the bills have never gotten a vote.

Because Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, has changed the way committees work, the bill — HB 4006 — now moves to the House Ways and Means committee for consideration before it moves to the full House of Representatives.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.