Amy Keller | 2/1/2010

Taxes

Corporate Tax Enticement

One way to fuel job growth and economic development would be to scrap the state’s corporate income tax, says Dominic Calabro, president and CEO of Florida TaxWatch. A more practical approach, he suggests, would be to change the formula used to calculate the tax.

While Florida currently calculates a company’s tax burden based on the percentage of its in-state sales (50%), property (25%) and payroll (25%), several states including Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina, California and Texas have all moved to a “single sales factor”of taxing businesses. Proponents of the simplified tax formula say a single sales factor makes a state more attractive for businesses to expand their property and payroll.

The Senate Finance and Tax Committee held a workshop on the issue last October, and a TaxWatch work group is assisting lawmakers in drafting legislation to address the issue. The move has garnered bipartisan support. Sen. Jeremy Ring (D-Margate) is pushing the issue in the Senate. Key House supporters include Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff (R-Fort Lauderdale), chairwoman of the Finance and Tax Council, Rep. Dean Cannon, chairman of the Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning, and Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel).

Main Street Fairness Act

The Florida Retail Federation hopes to persuade the Legislature to reinstate tax holidays. [Photo: AP]

Rep. Kurt Kelly (R-Ocala) wants online retailers to pay their fair share of sales taxes and is leading an effort to pass a resolution urging Congress to enact a law to enforce the collection of such taxes. The problem stems from a 1992 Supreme Court case that concluded that retailers are exempt from collecting sales taxes in states where they don’t have an actual brick-and-mortar presence — in effect giving remote internet sellers a 6% price advantage over local retailers. While some online retailers collect the tax voluntarily, many don’t. In 2007, Florida lost some $1.1 billion in uncollected sales tax on e-commerce, according to a University of Tennessee study that estimated the state will lose about $1.4 billion in 2012.

Tax Holidays

The Florida Retail Federation is asking the Legislature to reinstate several sales tax holidays for consumers to purchase items such as school supplies and hurricane preparedness items. Lawmakers decided not to pass bills creating the tax breaks last year because of budget constraints —?a move that federation President Rick
McAllister says hurt retailers, particularly when neighboring states like Alabama and Georgia had their own sales tax holidays.

“We’re working hard to ensure those holidays get preferential treatment and are viewed not as a cost to the budget of Florida but as a stimulus,” says McAllister.

Tags: Politics & Law, Government/Politics & Law