What do you need when you don’t have a job? You need a job. That seems pretty obvious. And with 2 million Californians still out of work, what California needs is a lot of jobs.
Instead, what we now have on the ballot in November is the Jobs Tax Initiative. A proposal that would cost us jobs, a lot of jobs. A proposal that would punish with higher taxes, businesses that want to hire Californians and create new jobs. That would push existing jobs out of the state. That heaps new burdens on already struggling small businesses. That goes right after high tech and bio tech, the very industries that we are expecting to create the next wave of good jobs.
What seems pretty obvious about the Jobs Tax initiative – is what a bad idea it is.
That’s why the opposition to the Jobs Tax Initiative includes the California Small Business Alliance, TechNet, California Taxpayers’ Association, Industrial Environmental Association, California Manufacturers & Technology Association and many other small businesses, high tech, bio tech and taxpayer groups.
Now the proponents of the Jobs Tax Initiative say they are out to close corporate tax loopholes – that only a handful of big corporations would be affected – that schools need the money they say their initiative would bring in.
In fact, this initiative doesn’t close a single loophole – it doesn’t guarantee that a single cent would ever reach our classrooms – but it would affect more than 120,000 California businesses – and it does close the door on the jobs we need to get out of this recession, 144,000 new jobs, according to a new economic study of just one part of this initiative.
Here’s how the Jobs Tax Initiative wreaks its havoc with our jobs and our economy.
Federal tax law allows businesses to level out their losses over time, which is especially important in this recession. Our laws were recently reformed to more closely mirror that same sensible policy. The Jobs Tax Initiative would undo that reform – taking away a lifeline for our small businesses.
Another state tax reform, would allow companies that do business in more than one state – to be taxed in California based on their sales in California. The Jobs Tax Initiative would return us to an outdated formula that means higher taxes on a business, whenever that business creates a new job, or opens a new facility here. That’s a formula that penalizes job growth. No surprise then, that almost half the states in the country have moved away from that sort of jobs tax, to keep their jobs at home.
And the Jobs Tax Initiative takes an extra shot at some of our most innovative industries – the high tech, the bio tech firms that are developing the technologies and medicines of the future. These businesses, which are all about researching and developing new products – would be prohibited from fully utilizing the credits they’ve earned for that research and development.
The Jobs Tax Initiative would overturn needed, common sense reforms. The groups behind this proposal are trying to dress it up in the rhetoric of closing tax loopholes, but the only thing this initiative would close, is the door on bringing new jobs to California. We need to keep the jobs we have, and we need to encourage the economic growth that creates new jobs and moves California out of this recession. In short, California needs jobs, not a Jobs Tax.
You’ll find more information at www.StopTheJobsTax.com. Get the facts for yourself. Read this initiative. And then, please join us in voting no on the Jobs Tax initiative.