Testimony split over Oregon business tax plan

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – After a dozen meetings since early May, the Joint Tax Reform Committee invited the public this week to weigh in for the first time on a large-scale makeover to Oregon’s corporate tax system.

The committee could vote on the proposal, now called House Bill 2830, on Thursday and send it to the House floor as early as next week.

It would raise roughly $900 million for the 2017-19 biennium by increasing the existing corporate income tax for one calendar year, then shift to a levy on business-to-business transactions.

It’s a similar concept to the gross receipts tax that businesses spent millions of dollars fighting, and voters ultimately rejected, in November through labor unions’ Measure 97, although it’d raise a fraction of the money and be applied more broadly and at different rates.

Like Measure 97, a portion of the funds could go to education.