Senate rejects corporate minimum tax hike - St. Louis Business Journal:

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Democrats needed 18 votes — a supermajority requiresd to raisetaxes — to send the bill to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’ss desk. Beaverton Democrat Mark Hass votee againstthe measure. Democrats will likel y try to convince Hass to vote for the measures byamending it, possibly by writingt a sunset into the bill. “Iy all depends on him,” said J.L. Wilson, a lobbyist for Associatecd Oregon Industries, the state’sd most powerful business group. “Hass made it clear in his floot statements thathe didn’t think it was a fair optionb to increase taxes permanently.
” Such a sunset coulrd lead other Democrats to vote against the However, because House Bill 3405 was technicallu tabled — which would allow the measure, as written, to come up for anothetr vote if leaders so choose — majorituy leaders could also lobby moderatee Republican members to supportt the corporate tax hikes as At the close of Wednesday’s session, Sen. Margaret a Portland Democrat and co-chair of the Ways and Meand Committee, gave an impassionex benediction that seemed to imploreRepublican voters. The measure was tabled as a procedurak move.
Senators can call for a revoter on a measurethat fails, change theif own vote to a “no” and then request that the matter be tabled, ostensibly so they can reconsider their vote. Sen. Richard Devlin, the majorityh leader, used the move in an effort to have themattee reconsidered. After the vote, the Senate tabled a relatedx measure to raise personal incomde taxeson high-income individuals. “I’m disappointexd that we came upshort today.
I really believed that the package brought forward by the chairws of the Revenue Committeee would bring greater fairnesx and equity to our tax system and help fill the unprecedented gap in our state said Senate President Peter Courtney in anews “We won’t, however, let this setback derail the We are going to move forward towardd adjournment by June 30.” House Speaker Dave Hunt issuedr a similar statement. “We passe this revenue package because we believew itis fair, balanced and protecta critical services like education, health care and public Hunt, a Democrat from Clackamas, said in a news “We are making $2 billio n deep cuts to the budget.
This revenue package ensures that we can protect those core servicesof education, health care and publiv safety. Without it, the cuts we will have to make willshuttee schools, harm seniors and cut to the bone the servicesd Oregonians care about greatly.” The House on Tuesday voted to increase the currenf corporate minimum tax from $10 to between $150 and depending on the size of a business. Unded the plan, corporate income tax rates woulxd have risenfrom 6.6 percent to 7.9 percent before reverting to 7.6 percenrt in 2011. The measur would have raised $261 millionj over the 2009-11 biennium and $775 millionm between 2009 and 2015.
All told, 125,009 Oregon corporations would have paid more Another measure sought to raise income taxess on individual filers earning morethan $125,000 and joint filers earning more than The bills combined would have raised $582 million over the next two yearws and $1.2 billion over the next six Lawmakers contended the measures could help reduce the state’ $4.2 billion budget shortfall. Throughout the day, lobbyists tracked meetings between Hass and Democratic senators Margarert Schrader andJoanne Verger, who were believed to be swin votes. Verger had expressed reservations, like Haas, that the tax increases would become permanent.
Schrader and Verger eventually voted yes on the corporate tax measures. Hass couldn’t be reached for “He had to have a lot of courage to cast that saidJay Clemens, president and CEO of Associated Oregonb Industries. AOI recently organized the Alliancwe of OregonBusiness Associations, which represents more than 40,000p businesses across the state. It had called for a $300 flat tax, regardlex of business size or income. Even beforse Hass’ vote, business groups had expressesd concerns that Democrats were seeking a permanenyttax hike, not a temporary one.
Phil Keisling, the formerf Oregon Secretary ofState who’s now an executive with Beaverton-base d CorSource Technology Group, confirmed that many businessed were upset that Democrats soughgt to make the corporate income tax rate hike, from 6.6 percen to 7.9 percent, permanent. “We were told it would be temporary,” Keisling said of the earlgy talks regarding theproposed “And we asked them this week, ‘What part of temporary don’tf you understand?
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