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About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 2018)
A6 State Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, February 28, 2018 Senate passes ‘pass- through’ business tax bill By Claire Withycombe Capital Bureau ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR FIBER FAST INTERNET IN THE JOHN DAY AREA? Call us today for a chance to win an Echo Dot!!!* *Limited to 10 new customers. CALL TO PLACE YOUR ORDER! • Guaranteed speed packages – no buffering • Affordable packages for residential & business Fiber fast speeds to meet your needs! The Oregon Senate on Friday passed a controversial bill that would prevent certain Oregon business owners from claiming a deduction included in the recent federal tax re- form law on their state taxes. But the bill could face a court challenge if passed by the House because critics con- tend the Senate origins of the legislation violate the Oregon Constitution. Oregon’s income tax code is largely based on the federal code. Tax deductions created by federal tax law are avail- able on state tax returns un- less those provisions are spe- cifically disconnected from Oregon law. The bill passed by the Sen- ate would disconnect Oregon law from a federal deduction for owners of so-called “pass- through” businesses, whose business income “passes through” to be claimed on their personal income taxes. Recent federal tax chang- es signed into law by Presi- dent Donald J. Trump allow owners of those businesses — such as LLCs and S-corpo- rations — to deduct up to 20 percent of their income from their tax return. The bill elim- inates that deduction from Or- egon income taxes. The bill, after more than an hour of at-times acrimoni- ous debate in the Senate, now heads to the Oregon House of Representatives. All Republicans present voted against the measure, as did one Democrat, Sen. Betsy Johnson of Scappoose. Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dal- las, says he plans to sue the state of Oregon over the rev- enue package. Under the state’s Consti- tution, bills for “raising rev- enue” require a three-fifths majority vote rather than a simple majority, and must be- File photo The Oregon Senate on Friday passed a measure eliminating from state tax code a deduction for certain business owners provided by the recent federal tax reform. gin in the House of Represen- tatives. Boquist believes the bill qualifies as a bill for raising revenue and thus must meet those guidelines. However, to date there has been no opinion from the legislature’s attor- neys on that question. Boquist told colleagues on the Senate floor that he’d requested an opinion Feb. 14. Earlier versions of the legislation laid out broader tax changes, but the bill was pared down early this week in an amendment after what the bill’s sponsor described as “general” negative feedback. Senate Democrats have cast the amended bill as al- lowing Oregon to assert its “self-determination,” in the words of Senate Majori- ty Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, and tout the sup- port of the pro-business Tax Foundation for repealing the deduction. Opponents of the “plan argue that this is a tax hike on Oregon businesses, an argument that stretches the imagination,” wrote Nicole Kaeding, director of special projects at the Tax Founda- tion, in a post on the orga- nization’s website Thursday. “No business currently re- ceives this deduction in Ore- gon; preventing it from exist- ing in the state doesn’t cause a tax increase.” State Sen. Mark Hass, D-Beaverton, sponsor of the bill and chair of the Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue, contended the de- duction, when combined with the favorable state tax rates for pass-through businesses that the legislature passed in 2013, would be another give- away to the same group of people. “This bill will not cause any small business in Ore- gon to pay one cent more in taxes than it did last year,” Hass said in a statement after the bill’s passage. “The folks we’re talking about already enjoy a lower state tax rate on their net income, and they just got a 20 percent feder- al deduction. We’re simply unhitching the state from the Trump tax train so they aren’t double-dipping on the deduction.” The move is expected to allow the state to collect $244 million more in taxes through mid-2019 than if Oregon al- lowed the deduction from state income taxes. Republicans cast the mea- sure as a “hit” to small busi- ness owners in the state and claimed it would put small businesses at a disadvantage compared to larger compa- nies, which are benefiting from dramatically lower fed- eral tax rates as a result of tax reform. “Democrats claim that (the bill) will merely prevent businesses from ‘double-dip- ping,’” Boquist said in a state- ment. “This is wrong.” According to the Nation- al Federation of Indepen- dent Business-Oregon, about 22,000 tax filers qualified for the preferential small busi- ness rates in 2016, but there are about 357,000 small busi- nesses in the state, most of which are structured as “pass- through” entities. L EGISLATIVE B RIEFCASE BUNDLES ARE PACKED WITH: Bill expands return-to-play power for kids with concussion • Reliable landline telephone service • Unlimited local & long distance calling • Call Waiting & Caller ID • Fiber Fast Internet WE COMBINE BIG CITY TECHNOLOGY WITH SMALL TOWN VALUES! Friendly customer service Trust | Affordability Family | Friends Community | Education A bill to expand the types of health professionals who can medically release a stu- dent athlete to play after a concussion is headed to the Oregon House. The Senate unanimously approved Senate Bill 1547 Feb. 19, and the House Health Care Committee voted 9 to 2 Friday, Feb. 23, to send the legislation to a full vote of the House as early as next week. Health care committee members Rep. Knute Buehler, an orthopedic surgeon, and Rep. Cedric Hayden, a den- tist, voted against the propos- al. The bill also was opposed by the Oregon Medical Asso- ciation, Oregon Association of Orthopedic Surgeons and the Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of Oregon. The Senate Health Com- mittee proposed the law change, describing it as a “child safety” bill, after con- vening a work group on treat- ment of athlete concussions and hearing the group’s rec- ommendations. Under exist- ing law, only medical doctors, osteopathic doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and psychologists are allowed to medically release a student athlete with a suspected con- cussion. The bill would ex- pand that authority — with online training and certifi- cation — to athletic trainers, physical therapists, occupa- tional therapists, chiropractic physicians and naturopathic physicians. Senate passes ‘Equifax bill’ The Oregon Senate has unanimously passed a bill to protect consumers when hack- ers steal their personal infor- mation from credit reporting bureaus and other companies. The legislation requires companies to notify con- sumers within 45 days after discovering a data breach of their personal information and prohibits companies from charging consumers for a se- curity freeze. A security freeze is one of the best ways to se- cure a breached account and stop identity theft, according to the Oregon Department of Justice. Under Senate Bill 1551, consumers would be entitled to place a credit freeze with each credit reporting agen- cy for free-of-charge at any time for any reason. Compa- nies also would be prohibited from charging for removal of a freeze, or a temporary lift- ing of a freeze. The bill now heads to the House of Repre- sentatives for consideration. Senate approves change to hit- and-run law The Oregon Senate unani- mously passed a bill Monday, Feb. 26, that requires drivers in hit-and-run crashes to re- turn to the scene once they learn there was a collision. The bill, passed unani- mously in the House Feb. 14, was spurred by the deaths of two young girls who were struck and killed by a vehi- cle while playing in a pile of leaves in the street in front of their house in Forest Grove. The parents of Anna Di- eter-Eckert, 6, and her sister, Abigail Robinson, 11, testi- fied in favor of the bill in both the House and Senate judi- ciary committees earlier this month. “In making this change, someone in the future already trying to survive their per- fect storm will not be faced with what we have had to go through over the last four years, years of reliving our tragedy,” Susan Dieter-Rob- inson, Anna’s mother and Abigail’s stepmother, testified Feb. 6. One Telephone Drive, Mt. Vernon 541-932-4411 155 West Main Street, John Day Your total communications people since 1914! 41918 40822