LANSING – Over 32 years, through October 2007, Michigan collected a total of $57.14 billion through the Single Business Tax, figures from the Department of Treasury show.
The SBT ended on December 31, replaced with the Michigan Business Tax. Figures released by the department were for fiscal years. At least two months of the current 2007-08 fiscal year will have to be added to the final total that the tax collected in its lifetime.
The SBT was enacted in 1975, when Michigan was then in the throes of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The law took effect in 1976 but formal collections did not begin until the 1977 fiscal year.
Technically the figures for collection include the state’s Insurance Retaliatory Tax which most insurance companies paid instead of the SBT.
However during the 1976 fiscal year – which was extended by three months from July 1 to October 1, setting the fiscal year the state now operates under – businesses made $425 million in estimated payments.
The first full year of collections, in fiscal 1977, the tax gathered $885 million, according to the figures that were compiled by the state’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports. It raised $999 million in the next fiscal year and then crossed the $1 billion threshold.
In fiscal 2007 (tax collections ran through October for the fiscal year) the tax collected a total of $2.01 billion, down 4.55 percent from the year before.
The tax had its biggest collection in 1999, when it collected $2.56 billion. In 1999, the Legislature enacted a law to eliminate the tax.
In November, the SBT and Insurance tax raised a total of $124.4 million, which would mean a total SBT collection of $57.26 billion. Revenue figures for December are not yet available.
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