State Says Steep Cost for Business Tax Proposal

04.17.2009
Issues & Policies

A loss of more than 22,000 jobs, a decline of $2.7 billion in gross state product and $2.2 billion less in personal income will be the price tag for Connecticut over the next 10 years if just one of the tax proposals approved by the legislature’s Finance Committee is enacted, says a new study.

The state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) worked with Regional Economic Models, Inc. to look at proposals contained in SB-932, including the elimination of the sales tax exemption on computer and data processing services.

Just one of those proposals, eliminating the sales tax exemption on computer and data processing services could:

Cause the loss an average of more than 2,200 jobs a year for the next 10 years

Cut the state’s gross domestic product by $270 million a year for the next 10 years

Drop personal income in Connecticut by $219 million a year for the next 10 years.

Increase costs on Connecticut’s 1,500 information technology firms, making them less competitive with similar firms in other states

Supporters of the Finance Committee’s tax proposals say that everyone has to “pitch in” to help solve the state’s fiscal crisis. Yet this kind of pitching in would only help scuttle the state’s economy and weaken hopes for a recovery.

Connecticut has already lost more than 58,000 jobs in the recession and it could get worse before it gets better.

“Right now is the wrong time to slow economic growth and kill jobs by strangling our businesses with a network of new taxes,” said DECD Commissioner Joan McDonald.

For more information, contact CBIA’s Bonnie Stewart at 860-244-1925 or bonnie.stewart@cbia.com. 

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