LANSING ? Michigan Senate Finance Committee chair Sen. Nancy Cassis (R-Novi) said Friday she is working on a business tax proposal in answer to Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s plan that will call for a tax cut.

Cassis said her goal is to have a proposal out to senators to review before the Senate breaks at the end of the month. To expect Senate action by July 1 would be too ambitious to expect, she said.

But she said after the series of hearings the Finance and House Tax Policy committees held across the state on Granholm’s Single Business Tax proposal she had come to the conclusion that, “The governor’s plan is a job loser.”

She is working on a proposal as House Republican leaders put in a notice to discharge Granholm’s plan from the Tax Policy Committee. The committee is expected to take up a House GOP counterproposal this week.

Under Granholm’s proposal, the SBT tax rate would fall from 1.9 percent to 1.2 percent, a credit would be provided for personal property taxes paid by manufacturers and taxes would be based on profits. To keep the proposal revenue neutral, it would impose a 2 percent insurance premiums tax.

But Cassis said the SBT in general is “insidious” and “destructive to our economy.” And the personal property tax is also onerous, she said.

While she would not go into details of her alternative, Cassis has repeatedly called for “broad-based tax reform,” and acknowledged that her proposal will call for a cut in state revenues. It will also fall in line with she said she heard from business owners during the hearings about the SBT and taxes in general. That makes it important that a tax proposal and the state’s budget “lives within our means,” she said. And, “I will say this very strongly, very emphatically: We are going to stimulate Michigan’s economy.?

There are several proposals she is studying and wanted to have the drafts in members? hands by the end of the month, she said. In drafting the proposal, she said, “The first rule is: Do no harm. The second is: Do something good.”

A revenue-neutral proposal will not work to help the state’s economy, she said. Since Granholm took office, unemployment has doubled, she charged.

Actually, unemployment rate averaged 6.1 percent in 2002, former Gov. John Engler’s last year in office, and last month was 7.1 percent, though the actual number of jobless workers has increased since December 2002 though not by twice as much.

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