A week into the second half of the Oregon State Legislature’s 2023 session, and on the eve of its annual Small Business Day at the Capitol, the state’s leading small-business association announced 13 bills it will be fighting to advance and working to defeat.
“Leading our list of priorities are support for four measures reforming our estate tax (SB 68, SB 498, SB 939, HB 2624) and for two proposals (SB 127 and HB 2433) reforming the state’s Corporate Activity Tax (CAT),” said Anthony Smith, Oregon state director for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s leading small-business association.
“In today’s economy, it doesn’t take long for a middle-class estate to exceed $1 million in value. We need to update Oregon’s estate tax law – or better yet, get rid of it altogether,” said Smith. Likewise, according to him, a rise in the CAT exemption to $5 million from $1 million would also benefit smaller enterprises. “In 2020, nearly 15,000 taxpayers had CAT returns with less than $5 million in Oregon commercial activity. This accounted for just 6.5% of the $1 billion in CAT dollars collected by the state that year.”
NFIB will also be on the defensive trying to derail or amend legislative proposals that threaten its members’ ability to own, operate, and grow their small businesses. Of immediate priority are:
- SB 592A significantly increasing OSHA penalties
- HB 2057A making general contractors liable for the illegal employment practices of their subcontractors
- HB 3471A banning no-rehire agreements in workers’ compensation settlements
- HB 3242A and HB 3243A incentivizing insurance lawsuits and raising insurance rates
- SB 704A and SB 1089 instituting a state-run, single-payer health-care system requiring more than $21 billion per year in new taxes.
