I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but why don't we set tax policy based on the actual friggin' dollars that the state treasury collects?

Crazy I know - but it might just work!

Speaker Merkley's comments on the May forecast...

Merkley: Higher Ed Will Be Top Priority

SALEM— House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) released the following statement in response to the report today that Oregon’s general fund and lottery fund revenues are up $152 million over previous projections:

“Securing significant additional investment in our universities and colleges will be our top budget priority during these final weeks in the legislative session.

“The good news from the May economic forecast is that we can match the investment requested in the Governor’s budget for the operation of our colleges and universities. But we must not stop there. We can and must undertake additional steps as well, including:

        **        Implementing the ‘shared responsibility’ model for student scholarship assistance to make higher education much more affordable for our students.

        **        Greatly enhancing our investment in the construction and repair of our college and university buildings.

        **        Utilizing the anticipated revenue to make a significant improvement in the operations budget for our colleges and universities beyond the Governor’s budget.

“Investing in our universities and community colleges is the single most important economic development strategy we can pursue. We can create a healthy business environment and attract good jobs and investment to Oregon, but we need a long-term strategy to do it.

“As part of that long-term strategy, this is the moment to adopt an increase in the absurdly low $10 corporate minimum tax and dedicate it to higher education. The resulting revenue will strengthen higher education today, but more importantly, it will build the foundation for a world-class university system in the years ahead.”

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Chuck, could you explain exactly how the corporate kicker is calculated, in particular how it is different from the personal kicker?

As I understand the personal kicker calculation, if actual collections of personal income tax revenue for a biennium exceed the budgeted projections of such revenue by at least 2% (or is it "more than" 2%?) then the entire excess revenue must be kicked back to the people who paid income taxes during that biennium, in an amount proportional to their total tax liability for that period.

In other words, to use an overly simplistic example, if the total excess is $1 million, and I contributed 1% of all personal income taxes collected for that period, I'd get 1% of that $1 million back -- i.e., $10,000. (Obviously the actual excess numbers are much greater, and an individual's actuall contribution much smaller, but that's the basic idea.)

Is that an accurate description of the personal kicker? If so, how does the corporate kicker calculation differ?

I guess I don't understand how a business could increase its kicker amount, without a corresponding increase it its tax liability for the same period.

Chuck, Pleases explain how getting your own overpayment back is so outragous?

Or is it just that you think you know how to spend other people's money better than they do?

Thanks JK

Thanks for the response, Chuck.

I'm still not at all clear on exactly how the corporate calculation works now. However, after reading HB 3048 myself, it boggles the mind that anyone would even consider calculating the rebate in any other fashion than that specified in the bill.

<h2>This one actually seems like a no-brainer -- it may be a bit "wonkish" and hard to get too worked up about, but still it's obviously the right thing to do.</h2>