My Young Entrepreneurs Act – or as I like to call it, the Lemonade Stand Law – passed the House this past week. It now moves to the Senate for consideration.
House Bill 3548 encourages real-world learning by allowing children to operate small businesses, such as lemonade stands, lawn-cutting services or more, without being buried in taxes and red tape. On asking for a yes vote on this measure, I urged my fellow lawmakers to hand our kids an opportunity and not an application. I was happy to get their unanimous agreement.
If enacted, this measure will exempt sales tax for businesses owned and operated primarily by individuals who are under the age of 18. The exemption would extend only if the business receives limited assistance from adults and if the business generates gross revenue of less than $1,000 during the calendar year.
This will give youth a great way to get some business experience without being regulated by the government.
Another bill passed unanimously during the week was House Bill 3545. This puts some protections in place for Oklahoma citizens by setting responsible standards for state agency use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The measure would require human oversight for high-risk decisions and transparency when interacting with the public.
Both of these measures now move to the Senate. They will have to be approved in committee and then voted on by the full membership of the Senate. But my hope is they will be sent to the governor and signed into law.
Also this past week, members of Leadership Durant visited the Capitol. I spoke with them along with a group of Oklahoma State Certified Public Accountants. It’s always good to have groups such as these visit and share their insight and ideas and to learn a bit of the legislative process in return.
Our House clerks were still gathering reports at the time this column was being written, but the latest count shows we heard 173 measures this week in the House. Several of those failed, and several are still under consideration. Combined with previous weeks, we’ve sent about 198 House bills and joint resolutions to the Senate. We have about 300 measures still active. We’ll consider many of those in the next two weeks before the third-reading deadline, March 26.