Yay Oregon businesses!
Steve Novick
OK, gang, we gotta hand it to the Oregon Business Council, the Oregon council of the American Electronics Association, the Oregon chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, the Oregon Business Association, the Software Association of Oregon and even AOI. They have come out for using the corporate kicker (at least this year) to help create a rainy day fund. They didn't have to do that. They could have been like Bono and called for state government to create a rainy day fund with someone else's money. AOI would never have dreamed of such a thing ten years ago. It's a good day. Kudos to folks like Nik Blosser and John Russell for creating the Oregon Business Association to set a thoughtful example in the community. Maybe AOI et al. would have reached this decision even if there never had been an OBA, but maybe not.
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connect with blueoregon
Feb 6, '07
Thanks for the news. Just a suggestion, if I may: it would be very helpful if you could include links to relevant articles, statements, papers, etc., when you relay information like this. Perhaps because I haven't lived in Oregon very long, I didn't even know what "AOI" was (Google told me -- I'm presuming it's Associated Oregon Industries, rather than the Association of Illustrators or Alliance One Intl.). But having found it, I see nothing on its website about a position on this issue.
8:15 a.m.
Feb 6, '07
The CEO and Chair of Lithia Motors has pledged to donate their expected $300,000 kicker to the Southern Oregon University/Rogue Community College building fund. Most corporations want an educated work force. Many corporations see giving up their kicker as an investment in education from pre-school through college. Governor Kulongoski has worked hard to turn the corporate kicker into a Rainy Day fund. That's one of the reasons Oregonians reelected him. Imagine what Saxton and the Republicans would be doing now.
Feb 6, '07
Now let's take the next step and deal with the corporate minimum tax. My little, four person company has been paying at least $1500 per year in Oregon corp income tax for the last twenty one years. I am sick and tired of hearing about huge companies paying ten bucks just because they can show book losses or are holdings of larger firms which use them for book losses. The state needs to take the same progressive step as Portland is on the bottom corp tax rate and get some fairness into the system. Small business is the backbone of our economy and small business has been getting the shaft for years.
The corporate minimum is okay for "S" corporations, where the profits flow through to the stockholders and they then pay Oregon income tax on those profits at their personal rates, but it is not appropriate for "C" corporations which are grossing big bucks but managing to show no profit. Maybe an adjustment of the annual corporate filing fee would be a way to handle those.
Feb 6, '07
The conventional wisdom seems to be that the kicker, both corporate and personal, is an idea whose time has come and gone. But it's important to remember why the kickers became law in the first place. It was a result of the state failing to live within its expenditure budget and spending the excess revenues during strong economic times, like we are experiencing now.
<h2>Those who support eliminating the kickers to establish a rainy day fund, will gain more credibility if they address the question of when the funds put away for a rainy day can be spent. I believe the rainy day fund should only be used when actual revenues fall below that which was expected when the legislature passed the budget.</h2>