Ocean State Action on Governor's Tax Policy Commission recommendations:

We need tax fairness for middle and low-income Rhode Islanders, not more cuts for big corporations

PROVIDENCE - Peter Asen, Associate Director of Ocean State Action, released the following statement today in response to the business tax recommendations of the Governor's Tax Policy Commission:

Why would the Governor's tax policy commission want to provide $38.8 million in tax giveaways to 50 of the largest corporations that do business in Rhode Island? At a time when taxes have already been shifted too far away from large corporations and onto middle class families, and when Rhode Island faces a serious budget deficit, this proposal to eliminate the corporate income tax is both deeply unfair and totally irresponsible. The largest corporations in America have received enough bailouts at the expense of low- and middle-income families.

Under this proposal, the fifty corporations with the highest taxable income would see a windfall of nearly $40 million dollars in tax cuts, or more than three quarters of a million per corporation. Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of corporations would receive a symbolic tax cut of $50.

And yet the proposal lacks accountability and does not require corporations receiving breaks to prove it would actually create jobs. Over the past several years, Rhode Island has made huge tax breaks to the state's wealthiest and to corporations claiming they would create jobs, but all those cuts have been utter failures in achieving this goal. Unemployment in Rhode Island rose faster last year than in any other state in the country.
We oppose the alternate proposals to lower the corporate rate because they would reduce state revenues, again forcing more responsibility for funding state government onto middle-class families. The Assembly should indeed institute combined reporting to ensure that multi-state corporations are paying their fair share, but not combine it with a corporate tax cut that will reduce the amount corporations are paying.

Middle and low-income families and small businesses are hurting in this state, and cuts to local aid as the governor has proposed will only make the situation worse by forcing increases in the unfair property tax. These are the problems that real tax reform must fix.

Ocean State Action is a coalition of 14 community and advocacy organizations, professional associations, and labor unions fighting together for social and economic justice.