BATON ROUGE — Gov. Jeff Landry on Thursday signed a series of bills focused on making changes to the state's tax policies passed by the state legislature during a special session he called in November.

"Christmas is early for Louisiana," Landry said ahead of the signing. 

Landry signed bills into law that will modify the state's tax policy, including the reduction of corporate tax rates to 5.5%, the elimination of a corporate franchise tax and lowering income tax for residents to a flat rate of 3%.

The new laws also increase the standard tax deductions for seniors, make permanent a $2,000 teacher pay raise, advance a constitutional amendment giving lawmakers more flexibility to reduce taxes in the future and modernize the tax code to include apps and streaming services.

The new laws will also set the state's sales tax rate at 5% for the next five years, among other changes to state policy that Landry says makes the state more competitive with the rest of the country and the world for both residents and business.

"I believe that we have finally, once and for all, placed the fiscal cliff...in a fiscal closet and that we'll never see it again," Landry said. "We've placed that state on a path in which revenue is going to be a lot more stable and our ability to manage the budget and the affairs of this government in conjunction to the revenue that is given to us by the tax payers is going to be a whole lot more responsible."

The reduced corporate and income tax rates, as well as the revised sales tax rate, go into effect on Jan. 1. 

The state will now consider adopting a constitutional amendment passed by the legislature addressing tax reform during a March 29 election. The amendment would rewrite significant portions of the budget and taxation sections of the state constitution that will further help the state lower personal and corporate income tax rates.

The amendment would also give local government the ability to opt out of collecting inventory taxes and provide the funding mechanism for permanent teacher pay raises, among other changes.

"There are so many reasons to vote for these constitutional amendments than there are not," Landry said.