http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/index.htmlNews CoverageenCopyright 2009 Noah Heller2010-03-04T13:15:31-08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:55:44 -0700None2010-03-04T13:15:31-08:00http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/e7bb81d4dd89a5f881439168eb58b9f9-12.html#unique-entry-id-12http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/e7bb81d4dd89a5f881439168eb58b9f9-12.html#unique-entry-id-12(Original Source)

By Tracy Loew, The Statesman Journal
March 2, 2010

Oregon will provide at least $626 million in tax subsidies for corporations this biennium, but has no system set up to determine whether that foregone revenue is accomplishing its goals, a nonprofit advocacy group said Monday.

The controversial Business Energy Tax Credit is expected to create more than 1,800 direct manufacturing jobs to Oregon, including about 250 jobs at Sanyo in Salem, said Marc Zolton, spokesman for the state economic development organization Business Oregon.

"Tax subsidies are created with particular policy goals intended, but for the most part we can't assess if those goals are being reached," said Jon Bartholomew, policy advocate for Oregon Public Interest Group, which released a report on the tax breaks.

The group also has compiled a searchable spreadsheet, available on its Web site, detailing the tax breaks. OSPIRG used data from the biennial state Tax Expenditure Report to create the site.
"It's good for taxpayers to see what value they are getting for their money from government," said Rep. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer.

Thatcher has been an advocate of state transparency efforts.

Oregon offers tax subsidies for everything from business development to environmental cleanup to encouraging donations to the arts.

The controversial Business Energy Tax Credit is expected to create more than 1,800 direct manufacturing jobs to Oregon, including about 250 jobs at Sanyo in Salem, said Marc Zolton, spokesman for the state economic development organization Business Oregon.

The report also notes that corporate tax subsidies generally have much less transparency and accountability than other government spending.

Much of the data in the state expenditure report was incomplete, OSPIRG said.

For example, most of the information relates to income-tax subsidies. Corporations also likely get hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax subsidies.

And the state does not identify the recipients of corporate tax subsidies nor the amount of tax dollars received. That information is protected by state law, said Lonn Hoklin, public affairs manager for the Department of Administrative Services.

According to the report:

-Half of corporate income-tax subsidies have no sunset date and are not otherwise subject to systematic review.
For example, a tax subsidy created in 1913 to encourage mining still is costing Oregon about $200,000 a year in lost revenues.

-Specific data on who receives the benefit of a tax subsidy and whether it is accomplishing a policy goal are, for the most part, not available.

-Tax subsidies are growing. The $626 million of corporate tax benefits projected for this biennium represents a 27.5 percent increase over the 2005-07 biennium. Of the 56 corporate income-tax subsidies created by the Oregon Legislature, 48 have been created since 1980.

State tax credits were in the spotlight last month during the Legislature's month-long special session.

Lawmakers voted to curtail the Business Energy Tax Credit saving the state an estimated $55 million.

"Had the BETC data been posted online for the public, press and legislators to analyze on a regular basis, the expanding costs of the system would have been noted sooner than they were and we could have saved taxpayers tens of millions of dollars," said Jody Wiser, chairwoman of Tax Fairness Oregon. "If that information was easily available, people would notice things and question them. There would be more watchdog eyes."

Several states, including Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, provide more complete information about corporate tax subsidies, Bartholomew said.

In Minnesota, the state publishes the name of each subsidy recipient, type and amount of subsidies and number of jobs created, as well as the hourly wage and the cost of health insurance provided by the employer.]]>None2009-10-01T10:29:11-07:00http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/c4bd281c7c02d1c2b2a9338d37b91617-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/c4bd281c7c02d1c2b2a9338d37b91617-4.html#unique-entry-id-4(Summary of Article)

Oregon aims to lead the nation in the building of “solar highways” – arrays of solar panels placed on public lands next to roads to provide green energy for lighting.

With one array in operation at the intersection of Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 and three new projects in the planning stage, we’re clearly ahead of every other state. But before we build more, we need to find a better subsidy and ownership model. As it is now, we citizens are paying the total cost of the first project, but it’s being given to privately owned PGE, which then sells the energy back to us.

When we build highways, we pay developers to complete the job. But then the public owns and uses the highway for free. We need an ownership model for solar highways that is just as fair.]]>corporate tax subsidies2009-08-31T21:58:10-07:00http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/bfc9a3ed30a95e3adbbd37b05861db21-9.html#unique-entry-id-9http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/bfc9a3ed30a95e3adbbd37b05861db21-9.html#unique-entry-id-9(Summary of Article)

Oregon lawmakers hoped to save millions of taxpayer dollars by trimming state subsidies for wind energy farms, but Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Friday he will veto that effort.

The subsidies to wind farms are part of a program called the Business Energy Tax Credit. Over the past two years, the tax givebacks cost the state about $60 million. Over the next two years, the cost to the state is expected to rise to at least $144 million, according to the most recent estimates.

An investigation by The Oregonian this year showed that millions of dollars in tax credits were being handed to some risky startup companies, to projects with questionable environmental benefits and to projects that would have been built even without the state subsidy. Critics singled out wind energy farms as undeserving of such large tax breaks.

They don't employ very many people and they send most of their power to California, said Peggy Woolsey, treasurer of Tax Fairness Oregon, which studies the impact of state tax breaks. "The wind farms are oversubsidized," while schools, state police, prisons and programs that help the needy get short shrift, Woolsey said. ]]>None2008-09-21T14:18:32-07:00http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/362ddece1c7b8bc20afa345df1412f74-10.html#unique-entry-id-10http://www.taxfairnessoregon.org/news-coverage_files/362ddece1c7b8bc20afa345df1412f74-10.html#unique-entry-id-10(Summary of Article)

Chat with Jody Wiser for a few minutes, and you begin to wonder whether perhaps you've found a branch of Robin Hood's family tree.
At 63, she's a wealthy Oregonian, thanks to the money her family made in farming. But when she sits through tax hearings in the Capitol, she's not one of the lobbyists telling legislators their clients need a tax break.

She tells them that rich people like her can afford to pay taxes, and that they should be paying more than the average taxpayer. And while we're at it, she adds, the state should be stepping up tax enforcement, too.

"I deserve to be taxed, and if you give the wealthy a tax benefit, you're going to be giving it to me -- and I don't need it," she says.

The bottom line, she says, is the common good: Taxes used for essential government services need to be shared by those most able to pay them.

Wiser heads a small, all-volunteer group called Tax Fairness Oregon. And she's busy. ]]>