LANSING – The threshold for penalizing companies for underestimating their Michigan Business Tax liability would change under legislation unanimously reported out of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.
As substituted, SB 98 would essentially exempt a company from state penalties if it paid 80 percent of its MBT in quarterly payments for the 2008 tax year. The legislation is an attempt not to penalize taxpayers for the state’s delay in producing the tax guidelines, said sponsor Sen. John Pappageorge (R-Troy).
Under current law, a company has to have paid 85 percent of their MBT liability through the quarterly payments to avoid being penalized.
Sen. Nancy Cassis (R-Novi), chair of the committee, questioned how much the state had counted on the penalties as revenue. Scott Schrager, legislative liaison for the Department of Treasury, said he knows the Revenue Estimating Conference assumed $15 million in penalties related to the Single Business Tax, but did not extrapolate that out for the MBT.
Schrager said in cases where businesses overpaid their MBT, they can file for a refund.
Not testifying, but supporting the bill, was the Michigan chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business, Detroit Regional Chamber, Small Business Association of Michigan and Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
The committee also reported out some further technical, clean-up changes to the MBT on unanimous votes (SB 89*, SB 90*, SB 91* and SB 92*).
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
a>>
