TRENTON — New Jersey business advocacy groups cheered Gov. Chris Christie’s state budget Tuesday, expressing satisfaction with his strategy for creating "a better environment to start and grow a business." While the governor may have ruffled some feathers in other aspects of his budget, the business community embraced his proposal to phase in cuts for corporate, income, sales and...
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
TRENTON — New Jersey business advocacy groups cheered Gov. Chris Christie’s state budget Tuesday, expressing satisfaction with his strategy for creating "a better environment to start and grow a business."
While the governor may have ruffled some feathers in other aspects of his budget, the business community embraced his proposal to phase in cuts for corporate, income, sales and estate taxes, totaling nearly $200 million in the coming year, and $690 million in 2016.
"For the first time in my lifetime, we have a governor and a legislature that care about paying the bills," said trucking business owner Matt Wright, during an event at the Trenton Marriott hosted by the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.
Wright, an NJBIA board member, added, "We’re going to become a place where businesses want to be."
His sentiment was echoed Tuesday by others in the business community, who seemed hard-pressed to find shortcomings in the proposals. John Sarno, president of the Employers Association of New Jersey, said his only complaint was that the cuts might not be enough to spur hiring — but then again, he said, "I’m not sure a budget could accomplish that."
"I’m definitely very impressed with it," he said. "It’s not cluttered with partisan compromising. I view it as a real business document. It’s focused, very focused."
The budget also met with praise from:
• The New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, which praised the governor’s "fiscal discipline";
• The National Federation of Independent Business which commended the budget’s "forward-looking approach";
• The New Jersey Business and Industry Association, which called it "a plan to grow our way out of the recession and our prolonged fiscal problems."
Among the cuts Christie outlined is a "loss netting" and "loss carry-forward relief" for gross income taxes, which essentially means business owners will be able to carry forward losses from one year to offset gains in subsequent years. He also proposed phasing in a "single sales factor," which will tax businesses based on sales, rather than the current formula, which takes into account property, wages and sales. This will benefit companies that do business in multiple states, said Dan Gibson, a CPA and tax partner at EisnerAmper in Bridgewater.
Other proposals include cutting the minimum tax for S Corporations by 25 percent, and raising the estate tax exemption to $1 million, from $675,000.
"These are all good things for the business community," Gibson said.
In addition, Christie proposed raising the R&D tax credit, so that the money companies spend on research and development can be used to offset up to 100 percent of their corporate tax liability, up from just 50 percent. That plan was welcomed by BioNJ, a trade group for the state’s biotechnology industry, which said the measure will help support a sector that provides high-paying jobs.
The New Jersey Restaurant Association said apart from the tax cuts for businesses, it was pleased with the property tax cuts for residents because they might help free up discretionary cash for consumers.
"Hopefully, this means we’re moving in the direction of a more affordable state," said Deborah Dowdell, the association’s president.
By Leslie Kwoh and Salvador Rizzo/The Star-Ledger
Previous coverage:
• Mercer County braces for the latest cuts in Gov. Chris Christie's budget
• Gov. Christie delivers budget address to N.J. Legislature - live coverage
• State aid for N.J. municipalities to remain flat under Christie's proposed budget
• Gov. Christie to beef up state aid for schools by $250M, sources say
• Gov. Christie's budget to include $200M in business tax cuts
• Gov. Christie plans $300M spending cut to Medicaid through shift to managed care