Senate rejects corporate minimum tax hike - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

grigoriynirim.blogspot.com
Democrats needed 18 votes — a supermajority required to raisdtaxes — to send the bill to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’sa desk. Beaverton Democrat Mark Hass voted againstthe measure. Democrates will likely try to convince Hass to vote for the measure byamendinyg it, possibly by writing a sunset into the “It all depends on him,” said J.L. Wilson, a lobbyisy for Associated Oregon Industries, the state’ws most powerful business group. “Hass made it clearf in his floor statements thathe didn’t think it was a fair optioj to increase taxes permanently.
” Such a sunset could lead other Democrats to vote against the However, because House Bill 3405 was technically tabled which would allow the measure, as to come up for another vote if leaders so choosee — majority leaders could also lobby moderate Republican membersx to support the corporate tax hikes as At the close of Wednesday’s Sen. Margaret Carter, a Portland Democrat and co-chair of the Ways and Meansz Committee, gave an impassioned benediction that seemec to imploreRepublican “nay” voters.
The measured was tabled as a procedural Senators can call for a revotw on a measurethat fails, change their own vote to a and then request that the matter be ostensibly so they can reconsider their vote. Sen. Richard Devlin, the majority leader, used the move in an effory to have themattet reconsidered. After the vote, the Senate tabled a relater measure to raise personal income taxeson high-income individuals. “I’ disappointed that we came up short today.
I really believed that the package brought forward by the chairs of the Revenue Committeea would bring greater fairnessd and equity to our tax system and help fill the unprecedentexd gap in ourstate budget,” said Senates President Peter Courtney in a news release. “Wre won’t, however, let this setback derail the We are going to move forwar d toward adjournment by June House Speaker Dave Hunt issued asimilar “We passed this revenue package because we believd it is fair, balanced and protects critical services like health care and public safety,” Hunt, a Democrat from Clackamas, said in a news “We are making $2 billion deep cuts to the This revenue package ensures that we can protecg those core services of education, health care and publicx safety.
Without it, the cuts we will have to make willshutterr schools, harm seniors and cut to the bone the servicesw Oregonians care about greatly.” The Houses on Tuesday voted to increase the current corporate minimujm tax from $10 to between $150 and depending on the size of a business. Under the plan, corporate incomee tax rates would have risenfrom 6.6 percen t to 7.9 percent before reverting to 7.6 percent in 2011. The measurde would have raised $261 million over the 2009-11 bienniukm and $775 million between 2009 and 2015. All 125,000 Oregon corporations would have paidmore taxes.
Anothed measure sought to raise income taxe on individual filers earning morethan $125,0000 and joint filers earning more than The bills combined would have raised $582 millionj over the next two yearsd and $1.2 billion over the next six years. Lawmakers contendef the measures could help reducewthe state’s $4.2 billion budget shortfall. Throughout the day, lobbyists tracked meeting s between Courtney, Hass and Democratic senators Margarety Schrader andJoanne Verger, who were believee to be swing Verger had expressed reservations, like Haas, that the tax increase would become permanent. Schrader and Verger eventually voted yes on the corporatestax measures.
Hass couldn’t be reached for comment. “Hew had to have a lot of courage to cast that saidJay Clemens, presidentf and CEO of Associated Oregon Industries. AOI recentlyt organized the Alliance of OregonBusiness Associations, which represents more than 40,0090 businesses across the It had called for a $300 flat tax, regardlesw of business size or income. Even before vote, business groups had expressed concernsw that Democrats were seekintg a permanenttax hike, not a temporary one.
Phil the former Oregon Secretary ofState who’s now an executive with Beaverton-based CorSource Technology confirmed that many businesses were upset that Democrats soughrt to make the corporate income tax rate from 6.6 percent to 7.9 percent, “We were told it would be Keisling said of the early talks regarding the proposed “And we asked them this week, ‘What part of temporary don’ you understand?
’”