About Proposal #1, this is my understanding, anyway... The PPT is a tax on the equipment of businesses that, especially small businesses, find onerous since they pay that tax every year on things they have purchased, in some cases, decades ago. Michigan is one of the few Rust Belt states that still has a Personal Property Tax for business. So the Legislature, in their supreme wisdom, decided that they needed to get rid of the PPT. However - and this is a BIG however - ALL of the monies collected from the PPT were given in revenue sharing to cities, townships and school districts. All of these entities have had their revenue sharing cut over the past several years - yes, even before Gov. Snyder came into office. The City of Midland stands to lose almost $6 million dollars a year, for example, if Proposal 1 does not pass. The way the Legislature wrote this is crazy, in my opinion. WE, the voters, have to pass this proposal for the cities, townships and school districts to get their money. If we dont vote yes, the whole thing falls apart. Then the Legislature can go ahead and kill the PPT with no attempts at helping communities make up that money. They can say they tried. Yes, there will be an authority, the Metropolitan Authority with statewide jurisdiction. The authority exists because the local communities demanded it. Heres why: it is to assure local governments that they will get their money. They dont want to see the money having to go through the states appropriations process. Everybody in business loves this. There are people who look at the way this whole thing is set up and are very skeptical about it working well. There are people with good heads on their shoulders who worry that this is going to cost the states general fund a whole lot of money, because it is basically yet another tax giveaway for businesses with a cobbled-together plan to pay for it that could put the state further into the hole budget-wise. I am skeptically “for” this Proposal, only because our local governments have been starved in the revenue-sharing by the state for the past several years. Why should they/we have to pay for this - except that, in the end, we all will if the Legislature has not planned well. Hope that helps. Here are some helpful links. Citizens Research Council, non-partisan group, has released an analysis of the PPT proposal: crcmich.org/ freep/article/20140608/OPINION01/306080051/michigan-proposal-1 A passionate, yet reasoned argument against the PPT from the Mayor of Warren: freep/article/20140725/OPINION04/307250012/michigan-proposal-1
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 15:05:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015