LANSING ? Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Republican legislative leaders will meet Monday to discuss the House Republican plan to overhaul the Single Business Tax, according to the House GOP.
Matt Resch, spokesperson for House Speaker Craig DeRoche (R-Novi), said Granholm’s office contacted the speaker’s office Friday to request the meeting. Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema (R-Wyoming) also will attend. Resch said the governor’s office indicated the House GOP plan would be used as a “starting point.”
“I think it’s very positive,” Resch said. “Now that the budget is moving toward resolution, we can get back to a discuss about tax reform and a policy that will create jobs.”
The House Republican plan would give manufacturers a credit toward their Single Business Tax equal to 15 percent of the personal property tax they pay on industrial personal property in 2006-08 (with the credit rising to 20 percent in 2009 and beyond.
Manufacturers would receive up to a 50 percent credit for industrial personal property purchased in 2006 and 2007.
The SBT rate would drop from 1.9 percent to 1.8 percent in 2007 and 1.7 percent in 2008. In 2009, if revenues are forecast to be $80 million above expectations, the rate would drop by 0.05 percent. Such decreases could occur four times, but the bill maintains existing law that repeals the entire Single Business Tax Act in 2010.
The plan also would over several years remove the cost of health care from the SBT.
House Republicans estimate their plan would cut taxes by $1.67 billion over five years, though money raised by closing or reducing tax exemptions as well as other measures leave the net reduction in state revenue at $782.7 million over that period.
Democrats and Granholm have slammed the House GOP plan as fiscally irresponsible and jeopardizing key state services.
Granholm spokesperson Heidi Hansen, reached late Friday, said she could not confirm that the meeting was scheduled.
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