SMALL BUSINESS HOPING A TAX INCREASE OF ANY KIND WILL BE DEAD ON ARRIVAL
TRENTON (July 26, 2016): The following statement may be
attributed to National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) New Jersey
state director, Laurie Ehlbeck in response to Governor Christie’s statement
last night regarding the latest proposal to fund the Transportation Trust Fund.
We certainly applaud the Governors call for tax fairness
in New Jersey, something that has alluded the small business community here for
decades. However, any amount of increase in the gas tax continues to be a
non-starter for our members. Reducing the sales tax and eliminating the estate
tax are crucial steps to improving the overall business climate in this state,
but they should not come at the sacrifice of increasing taxes anywhere else.
New Jersey’s economy has been precarious at best since
the great recession, and we are beginning to see other states that have heeded
the warnings of their small business owners and reduced taxes and cut
regulations find success while we continue to lag behind. Lawmakers must come
together and stop settling for the Trenton fiscal shell game of raising taxes
in one place while claiming tax relief in another. There is simply too much at
stake to allow the same old back room deals to be cut without pushback from the
business community.
