I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
SANTA FE — A joint memorial making its way through the Legislature requests that the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department create a business tax advisory committee. The committee would be composed only of members of the business community, which critics charge is unfair because other types of groups do tax policy research and often have different perspectives.
The non-binding memorial, HJM 34, which is being carried by Rep. Thomas C. Taylor, R-Farmington, says that the tax and revenue department is “severely hampered” when it comes to developing tax policy because of time constraints and a lack of information and analysis.
For these reasons, the memorial says, the purpose of the committee is to identify “needed changes in New Mexico tax statutes and regulations” and to provide “feedback on the department’s performance.”
Taylor, the House minority floor leader, said such a committee is necessary because each year the tax laws become more complex, and there’s a disconnect between the people who work in the tax department and the impacts of their decisions on the ground. This committee would help bridge that gap, he said.
For example, last year the department decided to enforce the quarterly filing of income tax for a certain class of seniors without notice, he said, and the effect on seniors was detrimental.
“While it was in the law, they hadn’t been enforcing it,” he said. “Then they just all of a sudden did it, causing some seniors harm. And it wasn’t fair. A committee like this would be able to check that kind of thing.”
Taylor said the intention of the memorial is that the committee will be composed of businesses. When asked why the business community should have its own committee inside the tax and revenue department, while other organizations — like the AARP, which represents senior citizens — are excluded, Taylor replied that businesses have a special stake in the taxation process.
“All taxes originate from business,” he said. “It’s focused on the business community — because they collect all the taxes.”
When asked how the personal income tax derived from individuals fits into that, Taylor reiterated that ultimately all of that taxable income comes from businesses.
Bill Jordan of the Albuquerque-based nonprofit New Mexico Voices for Children, though, said the idea that the state’s tax code isn’t responsive to the business community is “ludicrous.”
“It’s ludicrous that the business community is dissatisfied with this administration’s tax policy,” Jordan said. “Taxes have been cut by $1 billion in the past 6 years and 80 to 90 percent of that was done at the behest of the business community… Now they want a business-only, no-one-else-at-the-table advisory committee on tax policy?”
Dr. Beverlee McClure, president of the Association of Commerce & Industry, agrees with Taylor that the committee is necessary.
The Tax and Revenue Department “by their own admission, isn’t collecting the [tax] data and publishing it like they once did,” she said. “This is data needed by decision-makers to make sound policy decisions.”
As an example, McClure said, the state can’t currently tell if it’s receiving a return on investment for tax credits, “which is a huge conversation in this economy.”
But McClure agreed that inclusion of other groups would be beneficial, saying, “it’s a good point about being inclusive, and an amendment would solve this.”
The memorial has passed the House and is now waiting to be heard in the Senate.
