10/30/2008
CONTACT: Laura Stromberg, 512-476-9847
'If Our Proposed Reforms Look Familiar, They Should'
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The NFIB/Texas team gathers in the Austin office before a meeting with the state Comptroller's Business Tax Advisory Committee. The committee was the brainchild of the NFIB/Texas office and includes three members of the Texas Leadership Council. Wanda Rohm (second from left) is the owner of Presto Printing in San Antonio and former Leadership Council chair of NFIB/Texas. Rohm testified before the tax committee to discuss the organization’s proposed reforms to the new state business tax. Left to right: Joe Mack Hilliard of Fencing Incorporated (Corpus Christi), Rohm, NFIB/Texas Executive Director Will Newton, and NFIB/Texas Legislative Director Lance Lively. |
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas office of the National Federation of Independent Business, the state's leading small business association, today said San Antonio small business owner Wanda Rohm urged the state Comptroller's Business Tax Advisory Committee to support significant reforms to the state's new margin tax.
"For more than two years, you've heard the NFIB warn about the harmful effect that the new margin tax would have on the small businesses of Texas -- and therefore on the economic health of our entire state," said Rohm, owner of Presto Printing and former chair of the NFIB/Texas Leadership Council. "If our proposed reforms look familiar to you, they should. You've seen them before."
The 25,000-member small business association, along with four other statewide organizations, is calling for six major reforms to the Texas margin tax, including: eliminating tax liability for firms losing money, raising the small-business exemption to over $1 million and allowing small businesses to deduct the cost of contract labor as a cost of employment.
"NFIB/Texas has repeatedly expressed concerns over a system of taxation that does not take a business' profitability into account," said the group's executive director Will Newton. "The small business owners do not expect special favors and they understand they must pay their fair share. Adopting measures to ease the burden on small businesses in this state is more critical than ever to the overall well-being of the Texas economy."
"Now that this tax has been collected and the small business community has felt the sharp sting of the added tax liability we believe that legislators will be more tuned in to alleviating some of the more harmful effects of this gross receipts-based tax," said Newton. "We look forward to working with our legislators to bring about common-sense reforms to this tax."
Earlier this summer, NFIB/Texas reported that 84 percent of its members saw their margin tax increase by at least 100 percent over their old franchise tax liability.
