Senate rejects corporate minimum tax hike - Houston Business Journal:

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Democrats needed 18 votes — a supermajoritgy required to raisetaxess — to send the bill to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s Beaverton Democrat Mark Hass voted against the Democrats will likely try to convince Hass to vote for the measured byamending it, possibly by writing a sunsef into the bill. “It all depends on him,” said J.L. a lobbyist for Associated Oregon Industries, the state’as most powerful business group. “Hass made it cleart in his floor statements thathe didn’t thin k it was a fair optio to increase taxes permanently.
” Such a sunset coulsd lead other Democrats to vote against the However, because House Bill 3405 was technically tablex — which would allow the measure, as written, to come up for anothefr vote if leaders so choose — majority leaders could also lobbu moderate Republican members to supporg the corporate tax hikes as presented. At the closed of Wednesday’s session, Sen. Margaret Carter, a Portland Democratr and co-chair of the Ways and Means Committee, gave an impassioned benediction that seemed to imploreRepublicamn “nay” voters. The measure was tablecd as a procedural move.
Senators can call for a revote on a measure that change their own vote toa “no” and then requesgt that the matter be tabled, ostensibly so they can reconsider theifr vote. Sen. Richard Devlin, the majority used the move in an effort to have thematte reconsidered. After the vote, the Senate tabled a related measure to raiss personal income taxeson high-income individuals. “I’m disappointec that we came upshorf today.
I really believed that the packagw brought forward by the chairs of the Revenue Committees would bring greater fairness and equithy to our tax system and help fill the unprecedentede gap in ourstate budget,” said Senate President Peter Courtney in a news “We won’t, however, let this setback deraikl the session. We are going to move forward towarfd adjournment byJune 30.” Housde Speaker Dave Hunt issuexd a similar statement. “We passed this revenue packagwe because we believe itis fair, balanced and protects critica l services like education, health care and public safety,” Hunt, a Democrat from said in a news release.
“W e are making $2 billion deep cuts to the This revenue package ensures that we can protectt those core servicesof education, health care and public Without it, the cuts we will have to make will shutted schools, harm seniors and cut to the bone the servicea Oregonians care about greatly.” The House on Tuesdayg voted to increase the current corporatde minimum tax from $10 to between $150 and $100,000, dependinf on the size of a business. Undefr the plan, corporate income tax ratew would have risenfrom 6.6 percent to 7.9 percent beforre reverting to 7.6 percent in 2011.
The measurde would have raised $261 million over the 2009-11 bienniumk and $775 million between 2009 and 2015. All 125,000 Oregon corporations would have paid more Another measure sought to raise incomes taxes on individual filers earning morethan $125,00o0 and joint filers earning more than $250,000. The billws combined would haveraised $582 millionm over the next two yeare and $1.2 billion over the next six Lawmakers contended the measures could help reducw the state’s $4.2 billion budgeyt shortfall.
Throughout the day, lobbyists tracked meetingss between Courtney, Hass and Democratic senators Margareyt Schrader andJoanne Verger, who were believedc to be swing Verger had expressed reservations, like that the tax increases would becomee permanent. Schrader and Verger eventually votede yes on the corporatetax measures. Hass couldn’rt be reached for comment. “He had to have a lot of courage to castthat vote,” said Jay president and CEO of Associated Oregon Industries. AOI recentlg organized the Alliance of OregonBusinesx Associations, which represents more than 40,0009 businesses across the state.
It had called for a $300 flat tax, regardlesw of business size or income. Even befors Hass’ vote, business groups had expressed concernd that Democrats were seeking a permanenttax hike, not a temporaryy one. Phil Keisling, the formerr Oregon Secretary ofState who’s now an executiv with Beaverton-based CorSource Technology Group, confirmed that many businessesa were upset that Democrats sought to make the corporates income tax rate hike, from 6.6 percenty to 7.9 percent, permanent. “We were told it would be Keisling said of the early talks regardinhg theproposed hikes.
“And we asked them this week, ‘Whatg part of temporary don’t you