Leaders of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council are urging its membership to contact legislative officials and the governor to rollback the tax increases adopted in the state budget. Fairfield-based General Electric has announced it may relocate its corporate headquarters as a result of the new taxes. The Connecticut General Assembly is expected to conduct a special session to address aspects of the approved budget. E-blast from BRBC:
Over the past year, your Bridgeport Regional Business Council has been an active supporter of, and participant in, the statewide effort to make Connecticut one of the Top 10 states in the Country in terms of business friendliness by 2017. Over the past month, we have been active on many fronts on your behalf in opposition to the State’s efforts to further worsen our business environment by adopting a State budget with more taxes and more spending for the next two years.
Although our efforts have not yet been successful, we have never before witnessed such a united and strong statewide business community in support of an effort to convince more state government decision makers that if this budget stands, Connecticut will continue to decline as a place for business growth and economic expansion, and as a place where people want to live.
Yes, we are at an important crossroads, and it is not too late to reverse this situation.
We urge all of our member companies to actively call state government decision makers over the next week or so. Leave a message or tell them directly to support our efforts in requesting that the Governor convene a meeting with legislative leadership and business leaders for the purpose of reopening the budget discussion.
We must roll back adopted tax increases, reduce expenses, and keep jobs in Connecticut!
THOMAS SANTA, SANTA ENERGY CORPORATION, BRBC BOARD CHAIR
ARMANDO GONCALVES, PEOPLE’S UNITED BANK, BRBC FIRST VICE-CHAIR
TIMOTHY HODGES, PEOPLE’S UNITED BANK, BRBC GOVERNMENT RELATIONS AND TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR
GREGG DANCHO, CONNECTICUT’S BEARDSLEY ZOO, BRBC GOVERNMENT RELATIONS AND TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR
PAUL TIMPANELLI, BRBC PRESIDENT AND CEOPlease call NOW!
Senate Democrats 800-842-1420
Senate Republicans 800-842-1421
House Democrats 800-842-8267
House Republicans 800-842-1423
Governor 800-406-1527
The BRBC is attempting to get CT ranked in the TOP 10 for Business Friendliness by 2017? How is that working out? What was the State rank when the BRBC started tilting at this windmill? Doesn’t the willingness of the Bridgeport City Council to hand out property tax abatements to almost everyone and for long periods of time, even for projects that build no new units, bring no additional jobs to the area and no other community benefits count? These types of deals are killing the 100% taxpayers among City residents while getting newer residents of various income categories to get used to an altered and therefore unreal payment environment, but it is business friendly to the few. What good is it for the City or the State ultimately? Time will tell.
John Marshall Lee, excellent and right on point, Tippy wants it his way but he doesn’t give a damn about the hard-working residents of Bridgeport.
Connecticut is trying to be business friendly, how about being friendly to the taxpaying residents of this state?
During the past two decades some 300,000 more Connecticut residents have moved out of the state than have moved in. This compares with the current population of about 3.5 million.
Connecticut’s tax base is eroding as more and more people conclude there’s a better future someplace else.
Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city, is estimated to have about 146,000 (2012)–fewer than it had in 1930 (146,716).
New Haven, Connecticut’s second largest city, is estimated to have about 131,000 people (2012)–fewer than in 1910 (133,000).
Hartford, Connecticut’s third largest city, is estimated to have about 125,000 people (2012)–fewer than in 1920 (138,036).
With some of the highest taxes in the country, Malloy needs to ask himself why should anyone want to live in Connecticut?
www .courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-mcenroe-ct-business-tax-evaders-0614-20150611-column.html
CT Businesses Howling About Taxes They Don’t Pay
Colin McEnroe
Hartford Courant
Rmag99@aol.com
Connecticut businesses dodge taxes, the people pay, says Colin McEnroe
June 11, 2015, 1:15 PM
This week, state Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, told me about a series of visits she made to area manufacturers to hear their concerns.
So the CEO in a Farmington company is walking her out at the end of her visit and engaging in the de rigueur griping about his company’s tax burden.
“Out of curiosity, how much do you pay in state corporate taxes?” she asks.
“Oh, we don’t pay anything,” he says. “But, you know, we pay property taxes, and our employees pay income tax and sales tax and local property tax.”
The exception? No, the rule. In the most recent year for which these numbers are available (the fiscal year ending June 2012), 58 percent of eligible Connecticut companies paid the alternative minimum tax of $250. That means they all claimed they had no taxable income. Among the remaining 42 percent, the average reduction achieved on their tax bills–thanks to Connecticut’s generous and uncharted forest of tax credits, allowances, rebates and exemptions–was 25 percent.
The companies that paid no business tax often did this by accounting tricks that shifted their profit numbers to subsidiaries in other states, sometimes even to shell subsidiaries erected for that sole purpose. This year’s budget includes a “unitary tax” which tries to capture some of that money. It probably won’t work–we’re outgunned by their armadas of accountants–but it’s one of the things the corporate sector is squealing about anyway.
Why? Because they’ve been tax evaders for years, and they hate being called on it. They vastly prefer the current arrangement in which they duck all their payments and you pick up the slack.
And that’s what is happening. I’m going to show you some more numbers below, but first let me deplore the fraudulent caterwauling staged recently by Connecticut corporate citizens, notably General Electric and its CEO Jeff Immelt, whose total compensation last year was $37 million but who wants you to pay what his company owes in taxes.
The whining chorus about the onerous business tax burdens in Connecticut was quickly joined by media stooges like The Wall Street Journal editorial page and Joe Scarborough, who has parlayed his past as mediocre congressman into a present as a spurious, ersatz TV journalist.
The chief spear-carrier for business during this manufactured “crisis” is Joseph Brennan, president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association who requested “a meeting with myself, the legislative leaders and the governor, just to get ahead of this thing a little.”
That’s called access. It’s what business has and you don’t. What’s hilarious is that the CBIA won this battle ages ago. Now they’re just working on ways to shoot the wounded.
That would be you, the citizen with no pure advocate at such a meeting.
What percentage of Connecticut’s state and local taxes is borne by business? In the fiscal year ending in June 2013, it was 28.9 percent, the lowest in the nation, according to an Ernst and Young study for the Council on State Taxation. The state and local tax burden on business as a percentage of gross state product is the second lowest in the nation.
In fact, one reason Scarborough’s tax bill seems high to him is because, as an individual, he’s expected to support a much larger share of state operations than he would be if he lived almost anywhere else.
Let me be clear: the Connecticut budget-making process is undisciplined and lacks any clear goal or focus. There is bloat, especially (I believe) in state salaries and pensions. There are also high energy costs and a patchwork of mini-taxes and fees that businesses can rightfully bemoan.
There’s also no golden arrow. Even if we fixed everything that could possibly be fixed, state government would still cost a lot of money, and somebody would have to pay it.
Big business has a plan: You pay it. Little people pay taxes. Big companies call their accountants and the government officials whose loyalty they own through lobbying and campaign money.
That being the case, there’s something intellectually treasonous about all the post-budget corporate wailing: Connecticut companies telling the world how horrible it is to do business here. Thanks a lot, guys. Enjoy your tax breaks and loopholes while we do the heavy lifting.
Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at courantblogs.com/colin-mcenroe. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.