TAXES – Defeat of any expansion of the sales tax base is WIB’s top legislative priority in 2007. Expansion of the sales tax base is taxation that targets small and farm businesses. It is a new tax that requires owners of small business and farms to pay inequitably higher taxes.

Business services and farm necessities are the only two areas where significant amounts of new tax revenue can be derived by expanding the sales tax base. For example, a tax on accounting services is not a tax on accountants; it is a tax on the businesses and farms that must use accounting services. It is a targeted tax increase aimed at those businesses and farms. WIB is unalterably opposed to any sales tax base expansion.

WIB supports elimination of the personal property tax on businesses. It is a burdensome tax that unfairly targets growing small businesses.

WIB will work to eliminate state business registration fees because they are an additional burden and a hidden tax that is aimed only at business owners. WIB will work to rescind the state law that unfairly forces businesses to pay a fee for serving as the state’s sales tax collector.

WIB opposes any increase in the state income or sales tax.

WIB supports a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax provided the revenue is used to development new health care programs or expands existing successful health care programs. The $1 per pack increase is a recommendation of the Healthy Wisconsin Council. WIB’s Wayne Corey serves on the Healthy Wisconsin Council under an appointment from Governor Doyle.

HEALTH CARE & HEALTH INSURANCE – WIB will work aggressively to assure the success of Co-op Care, the health insurance purchasing pool program. Although WIB is NOT in the health insurance business, we strongly support the efforts of Co-op Care of Southeast Wisconsin, the Healthy Lifestyles Cooperative of Brown County and all efforts by the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives to spread cooperative health insurance purchasing. WIB has been the leading advocate for small business and farm family health insurance cooperative insurance pooling because we believe this large group concept offers participants their best opportunity to stabilize health insurance rates.

WIB supports legislation to ban the use of depreciation when determining a farm family’s income eligibility for BadgerCare. WIB supports requiring all increases in small business health insurance premiums to be reviewed and approved by the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance.

WIB supports the recommendations of the Healthy Wisconsin Council to expand BadgerCare to residents 18-65 with incomes under 200% of the federal poverty level and currently ineligible for Medicaid and without access to affordable health care coverage; to develop a reinsurance authority that will establish a mandatory reinsurance program for businesses with 2-50 employees and health benefit purchasing cooperatives.

WIB will work with all legislators and groups seeking to develop a more efficient and less costly method of providing health care for Wisconsin citizens.

BUSINESS OPERATIONS – WIB will continue to work aggressively to pass legislation to control the use of hidden automatic renewal clauses in long term business contracts. These contracts cover services such as waste hauling and uniform equipment plus product leases for credit card processing machines and computer programs. Large out-of-state firms use these hidden clauses to force a long term contract renewal. WIB wants legislation to require the seller to notify the purchaser, a small Wisconsin business, that the contract is up for renewal and that the purchaser has an option on whether or not to renew. Only companies that want to continue using an ethically flawed technique that is intended to trick a busy small business owner will oppose this legislation.

WIB will work to increase the small claims court jurisdictional limit that has been stalled at $5,000 for over a decade. Justice is denied in too many cases because of this limitation. This issue causes concern among counties that use court commissioners to hear small claims cases and WIB will work to provide funding options for those counties.

WIB will continue to closely monitor the Wisconsin activities of so-called “business consulting companies” based in other states and will refer distressed small business owners to the Division of Consumer Protection and the Wisconsin Department of Justice. The Department of Justice has a consent agreement in place with one such “consulting” business. Numerous small Wisconsin businesses have lost tens-of-thousands of dollars for advice of little or no benefit.

STATE BUDGET – WIB believes that an honestly balanced budget is essential to the long term well-being of the state, its services and its citizens. WIB continues to urge the state to put its fiscal affairs in order and to develop a balanced budget without raising taxes or using accounting gimmicks. WIB will also continue to educate our members on the importance of this issue. WIB will be present at all public hearings of the Joint Committee on Finance and all meetings that occur as they develop the state budget bill.