Senate rejects corporate minimum tax hike - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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Democrats needed 18 votes — a supermajority required to raisetaxes — to send the bill to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’e desk. Beaverton Democrat Mark Hass voted against the Democrats will likely try to convincwe Hass to vote for the measures byamending it, possibly by writing a sunsegt into the bill. “It all depends on said J.L. Wilson, a lobbyist for Associaterd Oregon Industries, the state’s most powerful busineszs group. “Hass made it cleaf in his floor statements thathe didn’t think it was a fair optiob to increase taxes permanently.” Such a sunsety could lead other Democrats to vote againsg the bill.
However, because House Bill 3405 was technicallgytabled — which would allows the measure, as written, to come up for another vote if leaders so choosed — majority leaders could also lobby moderat e Republican members to support the corporatr tax hikes as presented. At the close of Wednesday’sa session, Sen. Margaret Carter, a Portlan d Democrat and co-chair of the Ways and Meansd Committee, gave an impassioner benediction that seemed to imploreRepublican voters. The measure was tabled as a proceduralp move. Senators can call for a revote on a measure that change their own vote to a and then request that the matterbe tabled, ostensiblu so they can reconsider their vote.
Sen. Richard Devlin, the majority leader, used the move in an effor t to have thematter reconsidered. After the the Senate tabled a relatecd measure to raise personal income taxeson high-incom e individuals. “I’m disappointed that we came upshort today. I really believed that the packaged brought forward by the chairs of the Revenue Committees would brinyg greater fairness and equity to our tax system and help fill the unprecedentedx gap in ourstate budget,” said Senate President Pete r Courtney in a news release. “We however, let this setback derail the We are going to move forward toward adjournment by June House Speaker Dave Hunt issued asimilatr statement.
“We passed this revenues package because we believe it is balanced and protects critical services like health care andpublicd 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 protect those core services of health care and public safety. Without it, the cuts we will have to make willshutted schools, harm seniors and cut to the bone the services Oregoniansd care about greatly.
” The House on Tuesdag voted to increase the current corporate minimum tax from $10 to betweebn $150 and $100,000, depending on the size of a Under the plan, corporate incomw tax rates would have risen from 6.6 percentg to 7.9 percent before reverting to 7.6 percentr in 2011. The measure would have raised $261 millionj over the 2009-11 biennium and $775 million between 2009 and 2015. All told, 125,000 Oregon corporationzs would have paid more Another measure sought to raisre income taxes on individual filers earning morethan $125,0090 and joint filers earningg more than $250,000. The bills combined woulr have raised $582 million over the next two yearand $1.
2 billion over the next six Lawmakers contended the measures could help reduce the state’s $4.2 billion budget Throughout the day, lobbyists trackeed meetings between Courtney, Hass and Democratic senators Margaret Schrader and Joannr Verger, who were believed to be swingg votes. Verger had expressex reservations, like Haas, that the tax increasesd wouldbecome permanent. Schrader and Vergetr eventually voted yes on the corporate tax Hass couldn’t be reached for comment. “Hes had to have a lot of couraged to castthat vote,” said Jay president and CEO of Associatecd Oregon Industries.
AOI recentlhy organized the Alliance of OregonBusiness Associations, which represents more than 40,000p businesses across the It had called for a $300 flat tax, regardless of business size or income. Even befores Hass’ vote, business groups had expresse d concerns that Democrats were seeking a permanent tax not atemporary one. Phil the former Oregon Secretary ofState who’s now an executivr with Beaverton-based CorSource Technology confirmed that many businesses were upseyt that Democrats sought to make the corporate income tax rate from 6.6 percent to 7.
9 percent, “We were told it would be temporary,” Keislingb said of the early talks regardinhg the proposed hikes. “And we asked them this ‘What part of temporary don’t you understand?’”