BANGOR – Tax forms may not be delivered to Maine’s 160,000 filers in early January because of the state’s current budget crisis. That in turn could delay when taxpayers get their returns.

“The tax forms may be delayed to the end of January or early February if some budget issues are not resolved,” warned Anthony Neves, executive director of Maine Revenue Services.

If responses to some budget questions are delayed until January, Neves said, “I think there has to be a decision on whether we print tax returns this year.”

Neves, in an impassioned plea to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs last week, said the company that prints the tax forms must start the process on Nov. 16 so they can be distributed by the end of January or early February. The panel is looking for ways to trim $240 million from the state budget for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.

“Software providers [also] want to know what Maine tax laws are going to be,” Neves said. “We’re pushing the envelope with November 15.”

He gave the committee and the Legislature a deadline of Nov. 15 to decide a few specific tax issues for inclusion on the forms so they can be printed and mailed out in time.

One decision deals with whether the state will go along with speeded-up depreciation of business equipment or property that Congress passed earlier this year.

President Bush encouraged Congress to pass an “economic stimulus” package that would give businesses a 30 percent bonus on equipment or property depreciation for the first year the equipment was put into use. The bonus isn’t extra money, but a way to give businesses now some of the depreciation money they would have received later in the life of the equipment anyway. The companies supposedly would use the money to jump-start a lagging economy.

The Legislature agreed last April to do the same on state tax returns, but now with the budget crunch, lawmakers are reviewing the issue again.

Gov. Angus King has proposed doing away with the 30 percent bonus depreciation altogether in an effort to save $16.6 million this year alone. Businesses still would receive their scheduled depreciation on business equipment, just not any faster.

More than 15,000 companies and 100,000 individual taxpayers could take advantage of the advanced depreciation for business equipment this year, Michael Allen, a director of Maine Revenue Services, said Tuesday. That number affects anyone from a home-based business owner, such as a consultant, who purchased a computer and office furniture and would file an individual long-form tax return, to a multimillion-dollar company that bought a piece of machinery and would file a corporate return.

Either way, the state’s revenue services need to know whether to write the bonus depreciation onto the tax forms, Allen said.

For businesses, a state tax code that is similar to the federal one simplifies the filing of returns and saves companies money, said David Clough, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Otherwise, companies need to keep two sets of books, one for federal taxes, where they can take the depreciation early, and another for state taxes, where they can’t take the depreciation until later. Plus, keeping the 30 percent bonus on business equipment depreciation would give companies extra money to invest in their business and stimulate the economy, he said.

“It’s worrisome, this selective conformity to federal tax forms,” Clough said. “It’s all about money and the determination is it’s more important for the state to have the money instead of the small businesses.”

Tony Sprague, a spokesman for Gov. King, said he hopes the process of dealing with the budget shortfall is wrapped up by mid-November, especially since it could affect the delivery and subsequent processing of tax returns.

“It’s an issue that I think everyone should be aware of,” Sprague said. “The passage of time begins to have an impact on people.”