Minnesota Leadership Council Meeting Recaps Destructive Legislative Session

October 18, 2023

House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, Rep. Brad Finstead's Chief of Staff met with small business owners.

Minnesota Leadership Council Meeting Recaps Destructive Legislative Session

On October 10th, NFIB’s Minnesota Leadership Council gathered to recap 2023’s depressing legislative session and hear from state lawmakers about their take on newly passed legislation. The 2023 Minnesota Legislative Session ended May 23. In just five months, the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Governor Walz passed many, many anti-small business policies.

NFIB State Director in Minnesota, John Reynolds, recaps the 2023 Minnesota Legislative Session.

Despite an $18 billion budget surplus – by far the largest in state history – the final budget compromise included numerous tax increases that will fund a gluttonous spending spree. The next two-year state budget will increase by an eye-popping $20 billion over the current budget ($72 billion vs. $52 billion). NFIB Minnesota vigorously opposed new taxes and fees that hit small business owners and successfully stopped the 5^th Tier Income Tax and Capital Gains Surcharge.Unfortunately, the final budget included about $10 billion in tax and fee hikes over the next four years. In addition to tax hikes in the Omnibus Tax Bill, several new and increased taxes were included in the Omnibus Transportation Bill and Omnibus Housing Bill. Not to mention the $1.5 billion Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) payroll tax. You can find a full recap of the 2023 Legislative Session here.

House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, a pro-small business leader, was also disappointed with the 2023 session.

House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth expressed her frustration about the way the 2023 session ended, specifically the Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program, of which she has said this: “This program is pitched as something of a life raft for workers, but I have strong concerns the opposite may be true – causing wages to shrink and putting many businesses in an unworkable position. This is something we can least afford at a time we already are feeling the pinch of higher prices and a workforce shortage,” said Demuth. This year, there were so many tax increases that Demuth wonders how many Minnesotans are aware of all the different ways the government will raid your paycheck and small business. In addition to the PFML payroll tax:

Metro Area Sales Tax increase to the 7-county metro area
Retail Delivery Fee to deliveries of $100 or more containing taxable items; it excludes delivery of food and prepared meals; does not apply to a company with less than $1 million in annual retail sales
Gas Tax Indexing requires the gas tax to be increased according to inflation as measured by the Minnesota Highway Construction Cost Index, up to a maximum of three percent per year; the gas tax cannot decline even if the index is negative

David Fitzsimmons is Rep. Brad Finstead’s Chief of Staff.

On the Federal Level, our Leadership Council heard from Minnesota Rep. Brad Finstad’s chief of staff, David Fitzsimmons, and encoraged him to urge his boss to vote for the Main Street Tax Certainty Act. The Act will make the Small Business Deduction in the 2017 Tax Cuts Job Act permanent. Currently, the deduction is set to expire after 2025. The Small Business Deduction (Section 199A) allows pass-through entities like Sole Proprietorships, S-Corporations, Partnerships, or LLCs to deduct up to 20% of qualified business income and is scheduled to expire at the end of 2025. Small businesses across the nation have benefited from this tax deduction, using the funds from their deduction to invest in employees, benefits, and their businesses and the Main Street Tax Certainty Act makes this critical tax deduction permanent.

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State:

Minnesota

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