Raising CIT Will Need ‘An Awful Lot Of Explaining,’ Says House Finance Chair

House Finance Committee Chair Mark Tisdel (R-Rochester) said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) will have to do “an awful lot of explaining on what the upside is” for raising the Corporate Income Tax (CIT) to fund a roads plan this year, as they both have said they’re open to in the last week.

“That could be a tough one,” Tisdel said.

Tisdel said that increasing or imposing a tax is a way to disincentivize something, like how a tax on non-tobacco nicotine products as proposed in the governor’s budget recommendation will raise revenue and potentially drive down the sale and consumption of the products.

“If someone tells you they’re gonna raise business taxes and not to worry, that it’s not going to hit you, they’re either ignorant or they’re being deceitful,” Tisdel said. “I always tell people, I reserve the right to get smarter.”

Tisdel said that only people pay taxes, and if a business doesn’t pass the cost onto consumers, the alternative is to give diminished returns to stakeholders.

Another topic Tisdel plans to take up in the committee will be to return the personal income tax rate to 4.05 percent vs 4.25 percent as quickly as possible.

“It’s not a huge amount of money per tax filer, but I don’t think anyone’s going to be sending it back to us,” Tisdel said.

Tisdel outlined some guiding philosophies he’ll be using this term, like cutting taxes so that residents can spend their money on themselves rather than the government spending it.

He said money moves more efficiently through the economy when it’s the income earner spending it, because they’ll be using the goods and services they purchase, and they have a heightened interest in quality – an aspect that is diminished when the money is spent by the government instead.

Tisdel said it’s not to say that bureaucracies are negligent or indifferent to efficiency and quality, but that keeping the overarching intent of leaving money in the hands of its earners makes the money move more efficiently through the economy.

From last term, Tisdel said he’ll be reintroducing the revenue sharing trust fund mechanism that he and Rep. Amos O’Neal (D-Saginaw) sponsored and moved through the House 106-4.

“Amos was the chair of the Democratic caucus, and if the caucus chair has a bill that passes his chamber with 106 votes but can’t get a hearing in the Senate, then who can get a hearing? How many votes do you need and how far up the leadership chain do you have to be?”

The House Finance Committee will cover financial services, local government finances and tax policy. Tisdel said this will be his third term serving on a tax policy-oriented committee, and prior to that, he served at-large on the Rochester Hills City Council for eight years where he worked on budgets for the city.

His minority vice chair will be Rep. Jason Hoskins (D-Southfield), who chaired the House Committee on Economic Development and Small Business last term while Tisdel was his minority vice chair.

Tisdel said he thinks Hoskins has a very good local government background, coming from a highly business saturated area.

“He’s a good individual that you can speak to, and you don’t anticipate your words coming back to haunt you and you can share what you’re thinking without being penalized,” Tisdel said.

Last week, House Regulatory Reform Committee Chair Joseph Aragona (R-Clinton Township) said he and his minority vice chair, Rep. Tullio Liberati, Jr. (D-Allen Park), will have the best relationship of any of the committees this term.

“That’s not a contest. You can just tell him that he can relax, he doesn’t have to worry about it. It’s not even in his reach,” Tisdel said.

Tisdel said the committee will meet “as needed,” but has a weekly time slot that it can use when bills need action.

He said he hopes he’ll be communicative enough with his members that they’ll get enough notice of meetings and their agendas that majority and minority members alike will be able to learn ahead of time what the bills are and go into committee meetings with questions ready and have them answered to advance the legislative process.

Article courtesy MIRS News for SBAM’s Lansing Watchdog newsletter

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