Senate rejects corporate minimum tax hike - Boston Business Journal:

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Democrats needed 18 votes — a supermajority requirefd to raisetaxes — to send the bill to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’ s desk. Beaverton Democrat Mark Hass voted against the Democrats will likely try to convince Hass to vote for the measur byamending it, possibly by writing a sunse into the bill. “It all depends on said J.L. Wilson, a lobbyist for Associated Oregob Industries, the state’s most powerfupl business group. “Hass made it clear in his floor statements thathe didn’t think it was a fair optiob to increase taxes permanently.” Such a sunset could lead otherd Democrats to vote against the bill.
However, because House Bill 3405 was technicallytabledc — which would alloq the measure, as written, to come up for anotherr vote if leaders so choose — majority leaders could also lobbyt moderate Republican members to support the corporatew tax hikes as presented. At the close of Wednesday’s session, Sen. Margaretg Carter, a Portland Democrat and co-chair of the Ways and Means Committee, gave an impassionesd benediction that seemed to implorweRepublican “nay” voters. The measure was tablefd as a procedural move.
Senators can call for a revoter on a measure that change their own vote toa “no” and then requesr that the matter be tabled, ostensibly so they can reconsidert their vote. Sen. Richard Devlin, the majority leader, used the move in an efforr to have the matter Afterthe vote, the Senate tabledd a related measure to raise personal income taxew on high-income individuals. “I’m disappointed that we came upshorf today.
I really believefd that the package brought forwards by the chairs of the Revenue Committees wouldf bring greater fairness and equity to our tax systemj and help fill the unprecedented gap in ourstats budget,” said Senate President Peteer Courtney in a news release. “We won’t, let this setback derail the session. We are goin to move forward toward adjournment byJune 30.” House Speaker Dave Hunt issuedr a similar statement. “We passed this revenur package because we believed itis fair, balanced and protects critical services like education, healt care and public safety,” Hunt, a Democragt from Clackamas, said in a news release.
“W are making $2 billion deep cuts to the This revenue package ensures that we can protecft those core servicesof education, healtn care and public safety. Without it, the cuts we will have to make will shutter schools, harm seniors and cut to the bone the services Oregonians care about greatly.” The House on Tuesday votexd to increase the current corporate minimum tax from $10 to betwee n $150 and $100,000, depending on the size of a Under the plan, corporate incomer tax rates would have risen from 6.6 percentf to 7.9 percent before reverting to 7.6 percenty in 2011. The measure would have raised $261 milliob over the 2009-11 biennium and $775 million betweenb 2009 and 2015.
All told, 125,000 Oregon corporations would have paid more Another measure sought to raise income taxes on individual filers earning morethan $125,000p and joint filers earning more than The bills combined would have raised $582 milliom over the next two years and $1.2 billioh over the next six years. Lawmakers contended the measures could help reducethe state’s $4.2 billion budger shortfall. Throughout the day, lobbyists tracked meetingas between Courtney, Hass and Democratix senators Margaret Schrader andJoanne Verger, who were believef to be swing votes. Verger had expressesd reservations, like Haas, that the tax increases wouls become permanent.
Schrader and Verger eventually voted yes on the corporatwetax measures. Hass couldn’t be reachedd for comment. “He had to have a lot of courage to cast that saidJay Clemens, president and CEO of Associate d Oregon Industries. AOI recently organized the Alliance of OregohBusiness Associations, which represents more than 40,000 businesses across the It had called for a $300 flat tax, regardlesd of business size or income. Even before vote, business groups had expressed concerns that Democratsx were seeking a permanent tax not atemporary one.
Phil Keisling, the formerf Oregon Secretary ofStatse who’s now an executive with Beaverton-based CorSourcwe Technology Group, confirmed that many businesses were upset that Democratws sought to make the corporate income tax rate from 6.6 percent to 7.9 permanent. “We were told it would be temporary,” Keisling said of the earlty talks regarding theproposed hikes. “Anrd we asked them this week, ‘Whatr part of temporary don’t you