St. Paul (March 24, 2014) –
Small businesses and farmers celebrated a big victory last Friday when
the Legislature rushed a bill through that repealed two recently enacted taxes
and raised the general exemption on the estate tax.
“The repeal of these new taxes was a big victory, although
it was a corrective action of repealing new, problematic taxes that never
should have been enacted in the first place,” said NFIB Minnesota State Director Mike Hickey.
The bill repealed the new and highly problematic gift tax
and the new sales tax extensions to business services and farmers. It also increased the general exemption on
the estate tax by $1 million. NFIB strongly supported
all three components. The legislation also
adopted several federal conformity provisions, which will be beneficial to
taxpayers for 2013 income taxes.
NFIB testified several times this session in favor of the
measure.
“We told legislators the gift tax was very problematic and would
cause a lot of Minnesotans to switch their residency and would be most harmful
to small businesses and farmers who cannot leave the state,” said Hickey. “We also warned that the new sales tax on
certain services could drive whole industries, like the warehouse industry, out
of Minnesota. It was good to see the Legislature
take corrective action in an expedited manner on these problematic taxes.
“It was also encouraging to see them increase the general
exemption on the estate tax by $1 million, although we are still way out of
conformity with the federal exemption, which is currently $5.34 million per
person,” Hickey added. “In recent years
NFIB led the coalition that enacted a significant increase in the estate tax
exemption for small business and farm property, and the action the legislature
took on Friday will complement that”
For more
information about NFIB, please visit www.nfib.com.
