Ali and King Discuss Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes 5/20/2010

Saqib Ali and Nancy King debate the merits of closing corporate tax loopholes on Charles Duffy's "Political Pulse."

CD: Where are you saying Nancy's on the wrong side of the team or the team is on the wrong side?

SA: Here's the thing: I'm a progressive Democrat and our district is a progressive district...

NK: We disagree on that.

SA: .... On many issues I'm working to further the interests of my constituents. And unfortunately Nancy has been on the other side.

CD: What issues Saqib? What are you talking about?

SA: Well, I'll just give you a simple example. On this issue of corporate taxation, or "combined reporting". The principle is simple. You and I pay our taxes. But the big multi-state corporations, some of them (like Wal-Mart) get to slip out of paying their income taxes by exploiting these tax loopholes. The Governor in 2007 — Governor O'Malley — introduced a bill to close that loophole by establishing something called "Combined Reporting". It's a good idea. It says that all corporations have to pay just like you and I. That bill has passed in 23 other states. But Nancy obstructed that in fact and she introduced a bill in the special session of 2007, SB 27...

CD: To study it?

SA: True, true...

NK: Can I?... Can I? I'd like to answer that a little bit. The bill in 2007 was going to die. There weren't enough votes in the House to pass that bill. So what we came up with was at least an idea to keep it alive enought to study it and find out whether this was the right thing or the wrong thing. We still don't know. I'm still trying to get answers from the comptroller's office as to who the winners and losers are. Constellation Energy wins big on this. Fitzgerald Automalls wins big. Mariott looses a lot.

CD: But isn't this low-hanging fruit Nancy? I mean you pick... I think there were... you pick up tens of millions of dollars...

SA: Hundreds of millions.

NK: Possibly. And.. and... The figures that came out were before the bottom dropped out of the economy. And... my number one priority here is jobs. And if we're going to be chasing companies out by... by... having them leave Maryland because of jobs... I don't want that to happen. Let me just add this... We have this commission that's working on this now and looking at the issue. We're going to come up with a recommendation by December 31st and I'm guessing that we're going to come out with saying we're going to go ahead with combined reporting. Maybe a combination with something else... single sales factor or something else... and we will have legislation ready that I will support for the next session.

CD: But the commissions down in Annapolis, isn't that the way to kill bills?

SA: Charles.

NK: Uh... Sometimes it is... Yes. But it was a way to at least keep that idea alive because there weren't votes there to pass the bill.

SA: Charles. That bill passed the House. It did pass the House and it had the votes to pass the House. The Senate stripped it. But here's the thing. Senator King just told you that there's winners and losers under that bill. And I agree. The winners are the big multi-state corporations and the losers are the citizens and residents of Maryland.

CD: But Saqib, this...

SA: Because we lost out on those hundreds of millions of dollars that could've been used to lower tuition at University of Maryland and build better roads and... and... benefit our schools.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Political
• Explosion
• Corporate
• Tax
• Loop
• Holes