Businesses rally to urge no new taxes

AUGUSTA – A coalition of Maine businesses took its midsession message to the State House on Tuesday in the form of little red stickers shaped like stop signs. They read, “Stop the Spending, No New Taxes.”

In an event that was part news conference and part rally, leaders of the business coalition said any of a variety of taxes being considered by the Legislature to balance the two-year budget will drain away Maine jobs and, in many cases, send consumers across the border to New Hampshire, where taxes are lower.

“It’s time to put our government on a revenue diet,” said John Babb of the J&S Oil Co. “I hope our Legislature hears us today.”

Gov. John Baldacci’s $6.4 billion budget proposal calls for raising cigarette taxes by $1 a pack and hiking other tobacco taxes. But lawmakers also are looking at a number of other levies as they mull more comprehensive tax reform and tax relief packages.

Sen. Joseph Perry, a Bangor Democrat who co-chairs the Taxation Committee, offered advice to business owners who wore the red stop signs on their suit jackets as they lobbied the State House halls Tuesday: “Get a sticker showing where to make the cuts” needed to balance the budget.

Faced with that suggestion, individual members of the anti-tax coalition said they support Baldacci’s school district consolidation plan, which is designed to save $241 million in its first three years.

In recent public statements, the Democratic governor has called upon the state’s business leaders to speak out in favor of his school plan, which initially called for reducing 152 district administrations to 26 units. Lawmakers have been refining the bill.

Meanwhile, tax committee members have urged budget reviewers not to focus on one single tax as a way to balance the budget, saying the committee intends to develop a more comprehensive package of tax system changes. An income tax cut and a sales tax expansion are among those often mentioned.

Business leaders Tuesday made it clear they have no appetite for any tax increases, including those advanced in a Brookings Institution report last fall which calls for a 3 percentage-point increase in the state’s lodging tax to 10 percent.

“We control spending in our business in order to control income,” said Greg Sweetser of the Ski Maine Association. He disputed the notion that an increase in ski-related taxes would hit nonresidents the hardest, saying that Maine’s many small ski areas cater to Mainers.

Sweetser also said that some of the ski areas in the western mountains could lose business to New Hampshire resorts if the Maine taxes rise.

Richard Pfeffer, chairman of the Maine Restaurant Association, said raising taxes “really hurts our ability to do business here. … We are not going to accept it anymore. It’s bad for business and it’s bad for the state of Maine.”