The Accidental Governor on House Speaker Kirk Adam’s Corporate Tax Giveaway Plan

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This video of a press conference from the Arizona Guardian will dispel any optimism you might have for the future of our state. The GOP insane clown posse has to go.

House Speaker Kirk Adam's corporate tax giveaway plan — which he laughingly refers to as a jobs bill — ran into opposition in the Senate, so now he is running it back through the GOP's "Gimmicks-R-Us" shop so that Republicans can claim they cut taxes when they run for office this fall, even though Arizona is in a tax revenue freefall. House GOP aiming to curtail tax- cut plans:

Facing Senate opposition due to the ongoing deficit and a need to raise revenue, the new version of HB 2250 eliminates a 10 percent cut in individual income taxes.

It also delays some of the cuts for business that were approved earlier this year by the House, but it leaves in place most of the major business tax breaks included in the original measure.

Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said he can't support reducing state revenues as much as the original House bill would have when the state is still digging its way out of a multibillion-dollar hole.

"I think the priority we have to worry about is the deficit," he said. "If we do something that will increase the size of the deficit, that's wrong."

Failure to respond to the deficit would drive business away, even as the state tries to lure new firms with lower taxes.

"I don't know who comes here as a business if they look at our financial situation and see that we're X number of dollars in deficit and not closing that gap," he said.

Wow. I never thought I'd see the day when Bob "Bluto" Burns was the voice of reason. The dire straights this state is in must finally be sinking in even for ideological extremist Republicans. Oops! I may have spoken too soon:

Even with the changes to be considered Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee, most of the tax breaks for business remain in HB 2250. And some are not even delayed.

The new version of the bill still seeks to cut corporate income tax rates by 28 percent, starting with the 2011 tax year, somewhat offsetting the $1 billion the sales tax increase [if approved by voters] would bring in.

There also is a provision that would allow companies that sell most of their products outside the state to use a formula that would leave them owing no state income tax at all.

The state property tax, which hits businesses harder than homeowners because of the way each is assessed, also would be repealed. But the phase-out, which the House sought to start next year and take four years, will now not begin until 2014.

A plan to cut individual income tax rates by 10 percent across the board would be dropped. House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, who wrote the original proposal, said he wasn't interested as much in helping individuals as he was in helping the owners of small businesses.

I have had enough of this Republican bullshit about "small business." Small businesses are those that generate taxable income under $200,000 year. Small businesses generally do not incorporate until taxable income approaches the $200,000 range. The vast majority of small businesses generate substantially less income and pay taxes as individuals, not as corporations. Speaker Adams' statement is internally inconsistent. What he really cares about is large corporations that would receive a 28% tax giveaway under his proposal. He is lying through his teeth.

Adams said that a reduced capital-gains tax on small employers would replace his proposed income tax cut, a provision he said will cost less than that across-the-board tax cut. Yes it will, because most small businesses will not owe much, if anything, on capital gains. This is a distraction to get what he really wants: reducing corporate income taxes, and eliminating property taxes on corporations, which will result in county governments increasing residential property taxes to cover the shortfall in tax revenues.

Welcome to the new corporatocracy of Arizona.