2006 TAXATION LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

Staff Contact: Ken Pokalsky

Following is The Business Council's 2006 Legislative Program. It identifies priority issues to be addressed by the Committees and Councils during 2006.

All Supported

Corporate Article 9-A Tax

  • Maintain as scheduled the implementation of the "single sales factor" method for apportionment of taxable income.

  • Apply Research & Development-based Investment Tax Credit to the alternative minimum tax bases.

  • Reduce the Minimum Taxable Income tax rate from 2.5% to 2.0%.

  • Expensing of capital assets.

  • Provide for the sale of earned, but unused, Investment Tax Credits.

  • Apply carried forward Investment Tax Credits against the Sales & Use Tax.

  • Expensing of investments as an Investment Tax Credit alternative.

Personal Income Tax

  • Adopt “single sales factor” apportionment for partnerships including LPs, LLPs, and LLCs treated as partnerships for Federal tax purposes.

  • Expensing of capital assets.

New York City Corporate Tax

  • Clarify that receipts for advertising appearing in magazines and periodicals are receipts from the sale of tangible personal property for City of New York tax purposes, thus rendering the publishing industry eligible for "double-weighting" of the receipts factor in corporate income apportionment.

Articles 21, 32, and 33 Tax

  • Reduction of the Highway Use Tax (ton mileage tax) by another 25% of its pre-1998 level and conversion of the remaining tax into a 50% increase in registration fees for trucks subject to the Highway Use Tax.

  • Extension of the Investment Tax Credit to leased equipment and to insurance operations.

  • Establishment of permanency in (a) Article 32 itself, (b) ITC provisions in Articles 32 and 33, and (c) in the Financial Modernization Rules.

  • Expensing of capital assets.

Telecommunications Tax Reductions

  • Reduction of Section 186-e Telecommunications Utility Gross Receipts Tax to the lowest level possible.

  • Removal of all telecommunications services from taxation under the Gross Earnings Tax (Section 184).

  • Increased investment in New York by modernization of the Sales and Use Tax exemption on telecommunications equipment (Section 1115 Subdivision 12) to include ancillary equipment used in the provision of telecommunication services.

  • Elimination of the §186-a Gross Receipts Tax on other income of telecommunications utilities.

Administrative and Miscellaneous Tax

  • Enforcement of the Tax Law at the distributor level in order to assist in alleviation of the tax evasion problem with Native American tribes who sell gasoline, cigarettes, other goods, and services, tax-free to non-Native Americans.

  • Reduction of the Alcoholic Beverage Tax twelve cents per liter on liquors with less than 24% alcohol and thirty cents per liter on liquors with greater than 24% alcohol.

  • Elimination of the Estate Tax.

Real Property Tax

  • Continue to support a dedicated judiciary as the trial court for Article 7 certiorari proceedings on parcels exceeding one million dollars outside the City of New York.

  • Establishment of escrow payments of Article 7 disputed tax liability.

  • Permission for the calling of the assessor for testimony in an Article 7 certiorari proceeding.

  • Increase of the appeal period from 30 to 60 or 90 days.

  • Limitation of the discrimination between "homestead" and non-"homestead" rates to 25% and a five-year "grandfather" phase-out for jurisdictions currently exceeding 25%.

  • Exemption of newly deployed fiber optic lines from local property taxes.

Sales and Use Tax

  • Exemption of utilities needed to maintain controlled manufacturing and research & development environments.

  • Exemption of the "repair, installation and maintenance" (RIM) services on research and development equipment.

Click here for the 2006 Legislative Program for all Issue areas.