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Bitter medicine to salve business tax pain

By NJBIZ Staff

Someone seek the governor's office has put forth a plan to stem the tide of fleeing businesses.

Enfin.

Independent challenger Chris Daggett bases his plan on the sitting governor's hugely unpopular sales-tax hike, which he delivered to help balance the state's budget in the summer of 2006.

But Daggett doesn't seek to roll the tax back to its 6 percent level; rather, he wants the sales tax to cover personal, professional and household services, exempting business-to-business services. In an address in Trenton last week, the former commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection said the move would generate $3.9 billion for the state.

That alone is unlikely to win over consumers feeling squeezed by the recession, but Daggett wants the money dedicated for relief of corporate, income and property taxes. He wants to cut the corporate tax from 9.36 percent to 7 percent, and the top income tax bracket from 10.75 percent to 8.97 percent, while replacing property tax relief programs with a 25 percent property tax cut -- up to $2,500 -- for all homeowners.

"We've shifted from a goods-based economy to a service economy," Daggett said in last week's news conference, and the state's tax system hasn't kept up with the change.

The plan has its obvious shortcomings -- it's tough to imagine anyone excited about paying sales tax on a summer rental, for instance -- but we give Daggett credit for coming up with a plan to put air in the state's claustrophobic business climate as the drumbeat of fleeing feet grows ever more prevalent and the moving vans take more one-way trips across the Delaware River.

Now, if only his opponents would take a break from slinging mud to develop plans of their own, companies and residents might consider keeping their New Jersey address past Election Day.

http://www.njbiz.com/weekly_article.asp?aID=79379

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