A Resolution Opposing IP-28 Imposing a Gross Sales Tax On Oregon Businesses with Gross Sales Exceeding $25 Million. By The Oregon Logging Conference. February 25, 2016
WHEREAS, Initiative Petition 28 is currently scheduled to appear on the November 2016 ballot to ask voters to impose a 2.5 percent tax on the gross sales of C-corporations with sales in excess of $25 million and an additional minimum tax of $30,001, and
WHEREAS, the gross receipts tax is based on total value of sales, with no regard to profitability. Firms involved in low margin businesses with high sales volumes, such as automobiles, will be unfairly disadvantaged as opposed to those involved in high profit businesses with lower sales volumes, and
WHEREAS, IP-28 would raise $5.3 billion each biennium from a select group of Oregon businesses, a five-fold increase, and would increase the state’s $18.8 billion general fund budget by 30 percent making it the largest tax increase in Oregon history, and
WHEREAS, the petitioners largely represent public employee labor unions who are seeking to bolster the state’s budget and the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) that is driving many local governments toward insolvency, and
WHEREAS, the very same proponents of IP-28 have filed IP-24 and IP-26 to raise taxes on S-Corps, LLCs, partnerships and individuals making more than $125,000 per year, and
WHEREAS, these new tax measures could not come at a worse time as the State of Oregon is struggling to emerge from one of the worst recessionary periods in modern times, unemployment rates are still unacceptably high and the growth of new jobs is sporadic, and
WHEREAS, Initiative Petitions 24, 26 and 28 could very likely drive businesses out of the State of Oregon to relocate elsewhere.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Oregon Logging Conference (OLC) go on record in strong opposition to Initiative Petitions 24, 26 and 28 and urge the State Legislature to take control of the State of Oregon’s financial affairs.