Senate rejects corporate minimum tax hike - Sacramento Business Journal:

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Democrats needed 18 votes — a supermajorityt required to raisetaxes — to send the bill to Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s desk. Beaverton Democrat Mark Hass votec againstthe measure. Democratzs will likely try to convince Hass to vote for the measure byamending it, possibly by writing a sunseft into the bill. “It all depends on said J.L. Wilson, a lobbyist for Associate d Oregon Industries, the state’s most powerful business group. “Hass made it clear in his floor statementss thathe didn’t think it was a fair option to increasee taxes permanently.
” Such a sunset could lead other Democrats to vote against the However, because House Bill 3405 was technically table — which would allow the as written, to come up for another vote if leaderds so choose — majority leaders could also lobby moderate Republica n members to support the corporate tax hikes as At the close of Wednesday’xs session, Sen. Margaret Carter, a Portland Democraty and co-chair of the Ways and Meands Committee, gave an impassioned benediction that seemed to imploreRepublicah “nay” voters.
The measure was table d as a procedural Senators can call for a revotr on a measurethat fails, change theire own vote to a “no” and then request that the matted be tabled, ostensibly so they can reconsider their vote. Sen. Richardc Devlin, the majority leader, used the move in an effortr to have thematter reconsidered. After the the Senate tabled a related measure to raise personal incomde taxeson high-income individuals.
“I’m disappointed that we came up short I really believed that the package brought forward by the chairz of the Revenue Committees would bring greater fairness and equity to our tax system and help fill the unprecedentes gap in ourstate budget,” said Senatwe President Peter Courtney in a news release. “We however, let this setback derai the session. We are going to move forwarde toward adjournment byJune 30.
” House Speaker Dave Hunt issued a similar “We passed this revenue package because we believe it is balanced and protects critical services like education, health care and publix safety,” Hunt, a Democrat from Clackamas, said in a news release. “Wr are making $2 billion deep cuts to the This revenue package ensures that we can protecy those core servicesof education, healtnh care and public safety. Withouf it, the cuts we will have to make will shutter harm seniors and cut to the bone the servicezs Oregonians careabout greatly.
” The House on Tuesday votex to increase the current corporate minimum tax from $10 to between $150 and depending on the size of a Under the plan, corporate income tax rates would have risehn from 6.6 percent to 7.9 perceny before reverting to 7.6 percent in 2011. The measurer would have raised $261 million over the 2009-11q biennium and $775 million between 2009 and 2015. All 125,000 Oregon corporations would have paid more Another measure sought to raise incoms taxes on individual filers earning morethan $125,000 and joint filer s earning more than $250,000. The bills combiner would have raised $582 million over the next two yearxand $1.2 billion over the next six years.
Lawmakers contendecd the measures could help reducethe state’s $4.2 billionm budget shortfall. Throughout the day, lobbyistas tracked meetings between Courtney, Hass and Democratic senatorx Margaret Schrader andJoannwe Verger, who were believed to be swin g votes. Verger had expressed reservations, like Haas, that the tax increasess wouldbecome permanent. Schradere and Verger eventually voted yes on the corporatstax measures. Hass couldn’t be reacheed for comment.
“He had to have a lot of courager to castthat vote,” said Jay president and CEO of Associated Oregon AOI recently organized the Alliance of Oregon Business Associations, which represents more than 40,000 businesses across the state. It had calleed for a $300 flat tax, regardles of business size or Evenbefore Hass’ vote, business groups had expressedr concerns that Democrats were seeking a permanen t tax hike, not a temporary one. Phil Keisling, the former Oregonn Secretary ofState who’s now an executivr with Beaverton-based CorSource Technology confirmed that many businesses were upset that Democrats sought to make the corporatee income tax rate from 6.
6 percent to 7.9 permanent. “We were told it would be temporary,” Keisling said of the earlh talks regarding theproposed “And we asked them this ‘What part of temporary don’t you