AUGUSTA – Members of the Maine House gave overwhelming approval Tuesday to a bill that would exempt vegetable seeds from the state sales tax.

Vegetable seeds have long been exempted from the sales tax, but Rep. John F. Piotti, D-Unity, said that the exemption was lifted last year and deferred to take effect this year as part of a broad package of changes to raise revenues accepted by the Appropriations Committee.

While the Legislature’s Taxation Committee voted 9-3 to allow the tax to take effect, an overwhelming majority of lawmakers in the House on Tuesday perceived the recommendation as an attempt to place an unpopular tax on elderly, fixed-income and low-income residents. The House members were so impressed with arguments in favor of the tax exemption that they voted 116-20 in favor of it in an initial vote.

“We didn’t know all of the details, and some of us missed that this particular item was included,” Piotti said, referring to last year’s action by the Appropriations Committee to remove the exemption. “But we should fix the problem. It does not make sense to tax seeds that grow into food. Most people may spend two or three dollars a year on seeds, and you may ask, ‘What’s the big deal?’ But it is a big deal for some people with low incomes who rely on vegetables that they grow for their own sustenance.”

Maine does not tax food at the supermarket, and many lawmakers thought the Legislature was sending an inconsistent message by agreeing to tax seeds that grow into food, but not the food itself.

“We’re going to charge [our constituents] a tax on their seeds even though if they went and bought their vegetables already grown they wouldn’t pay a tax on them?” asked Rep. Deborah Hutton, D-Bowdoinham. “I think this is something we need to rectify.”

But Rep. Richard Woodbury, an independent from Yarmouth and House chairman of the Taxation Committee, and others argued in favor of the tax. They said lifting the tax exemption, valued at about $100,000 a year, would have only a small financial effect on consumers and eliminate one more tax exemption that was really unnecessary.

“I think I speak for the majority who believe that this bill adds to what really has become a clutter of tax exemptions, and the majority of us prefer not to add another tax exemption to the many that already exist,” Woodbury said.

The bill faces additional votes in the House and Senate.