LANSING – The petitions to repeal the Michigan Single Business Tax have about 15 percent more signatures than are needed to put the issue before the Legislature, an Elections staff report released Monday contends.

The Board of State Canvassers is to act on the staff recommendation on Friday, putting the issue before the Legislature, which will then have 40 days to act on the initiated law moving up the SBT repeal by two years.

But Republican leaders in the Legislature are likely to act relatively quickly to adopt the proposal and avoid putting the issue on the ballot. The Joint Senate-House committee charged with devising a replacement to the $2 billion a year tax gets its process going Tuesday with presentations from the Senate and House Fiscal agencies.

The earliest the Legislature would have to act if the board certifies the petitions on Friday would be September 7, but an August session for the purpose of passing the proposal is expected.

House Republicans will discuss a date when they come for session Wednesday, and spokesperson Matt Resch said it was the hope of House Speaker Craig DeRoche (R-Novi) “to act sooner rather than later.”

Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming) has also not yet set a date, but spokesperson Ari Adler said, “We do plan on taking a vote and approving it.”

Approval by both houses is all that is needed to enact an initiated law, which is not subject to a gubernatorial veto, as Gov. Jennifer Granholm used earlier this year to block approval of a bill moving up the SBT repeal date to 2007.

The Legislature could consider an alternative to the initiated law, but that could occur only if it first rejects the proposal put before it by voters.

Based on findings drawn from a sample of 500 signatures, Elections Director Chris Thomas recommended the Board of State Canvassers certify the petitions that the staff review estimated contain at least 291,741 valid signatures. Initiated petitions require 254,206 valid signatures to be certified for the ballot.

A challenge to the sufficiency of the petitions is unlikely since no opposition groups had requested copies in order to undertake an independent review.

The staff had found 1,583 invalid signatures – most of them involved defective certificates by circulators – out of the 372,755 that had been submitted by a group led by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.

Sen. Nancy Cassis (R-Novi), co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Economic Growth, said the fiscal agency presentations Tuesday will be the first step in assembling the information the panel will need to recommend a replacement for the SBT.

A tentative meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 16 to assemble descriptions and the effect of all the incentive credits provided under the current SBT law, an issue that has already caused some concern in the business community and prompted Republicans to pledge that the impact of the credits will be continued.

After that, Cassis said, “We will look at what would be the next procedure and maybe hear different proposals that various groups have put out there. And I would ask that any proposals be very concrete and not just an idea.”

The committee, whose other co-chair is Rep. Fulton Sheen (R-Plainwell) has a December 1 deadline to submit recommendations to the Legislature on a replacement tax. Patterson and other proponents of early repeal of the SBT, which under current law would disappear December 31, 2009, favor a business tax plan that would replace most but not all of the SBT revenue; Granholm, supported by Democratic legislators, favors complete replacement of the revenue with business-only taxes.

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