BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The Louisiana Legislature has convened for their third special session of the year.

This two-and-a-half-week session will mainly focus on a major tax reform overhaul in hopes to tackle the state's fiscal cliff. There are 12 bills that are the main goals of the administration.

Gov. Jeff Landry said in his speech to the legislature that it is long overdue that Louisiana makes a change to the tax code.

"Our tax code has not seen significant change since 1974. In the 50 years since, the world around us has changed greatly. But this [tax system] remains the same. This tax code is bloated. This tax code is broken. This tax code is incredibly out of date. And this tax code is holding our state back," Landry said.

Secretary of State: Louisiana saw over 1 million voters on Election Day in November

One of the key focuses will be on reducing the income tax. The lowest earners, making under $12,500, will no longer pay an income tax. For the rest of the tax brackets, the plan would make it a flat 3% rate. With the widening of the sales tax base, the lost funds should be offset, according to the Department of Revenue.

The plan also would mean a lot more goods and services both physically and digitally will be subject to sales tax. This is an attempt to mirror what other states are doing to bring in revenue and modernize sales tax collection from online transactions. An additional 49 services will be subject to sales tax and 111 sales tax exemptions would be eliminated.

Despite past discussions about allowing the temporary .45 sales tax to sunset, Landry wants to make it permanent. The potential roll-off of that tax was adding to the hundreds of millions of dollars the state would be short in the next budget.

The legislature will debate a constitutional amendment that will need to be approved by voters to move money out of constitutionally protected funds. One is the Revenue Stabilization Fund which is the second back up money account for the state.

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The money in that account would max out the Rainy Day Fund and be used to pay down teacher retirement debt in order for districts to use the savings on those payments for a permanent teacher pay raise. Charter schools and others who may not get a big enough savings to pay the teachers will get a backfill from the state.

There are also proposed changes that would do away with the franchise tax, make the inventory tax voluntary with opt out incentives and reductions to the corporate income tax that could see a number of tax credits phased out. The first bills will be heard in committee on Thursday.