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An important part of the Michigan Business & Professional Association's mission is to represent our small business members in Lansing on issues affecting their businesses. In recent surveys, members have shared with us that healthcare and healthcare costs were a growing concern, especially in the individual market.
As our economy still takes a back seat to the rest of the nation, we all have to tighten our belts in one fashion or another. We have heard and experience ourselves as a small business, how costly it is to provide healthcare for you and/or your employees when you are watching your bottom line and have to cut costs. Thus, providing healthcare options for those individuals whose businesses cannot provide group healthcare due to necessary budget cuts is a necessity.
MBPA is proud to support legislation which puts basic consumer protections into our individual healthcare market. House Bills 5282 and 5283 reform the individual healthcare market to insure consumers receive fair and competitive rates, keep their coverage affordable long-term, and maintain access to coverage regardless of their medical condition.
We are also proud to be part of a broad-based coalition named Consumers for Fair and Affordable Insurance Reform (CFAIR). This group includes a cross section of Michigan organizations and businesses. Click here to visit our coalition web site to get more information.
Questions and feedback are welcome and much appreciated on this important healthcare reform package. Please click here to participate in our healthcare survey. Your answers are confidential and will aid our staff in helping to shape the individual healthcare market to fit your needs.
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The Department of Treasury now has new forms for businesses needing to file estimated quarterly payments and special instructions. Estimated taxes are required of businesses with annual combined tax liability of over $800, and estimated payments must equal at least 85% of the annual amount due. Each payment is to reflect the liability of the company in that period. To access their site, Click Here.
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The Michigan Business and Professional Association (MBPA) and the Michigan Food and Beverage Association (MFBA) want to keep you up to date on Michigan's new Business Tax, the MBT. As you know the SBT was eliminated and is now set to expire this December 31, 2007 and its replacement the MBT has been signed by Governor Granholm and is set to be your new business tax starting January 1, 2008.
Although the MBT is signed into law and will be enacted in less than six months, there are still some small repairs to be made to the new tax. Legislators are aware of potential problems to small businesses in Michigan if this legislation is not altered. Below you will find a condensed version of Michigan's new business tax. Please take a minute and review these highlights and see how it will be impacting your bottom line. Comments, concerns and questions are encouraged on the MBT, as your feedback will be given directly to the legislators responsible for fixing potential problems that small business could face from this new tax come 2008.
MBT Highlights:
Small Business Specific
- Small firms will pay a 1.8% tax on adjusted business income and no margins tax (under the SBT, firms pay s 2% tax)
-$350,000 gross receipts filing threshold is retained and tax liability will be phased in for firm with between $350,000 and $700,000 in gross receipts
Tax Base and Rates
-Financial institutions pay a tax on net capital of 0.235%
-Insurance companies pay a tax on premiums of 1.25%
-Firms (other than financial, insurance, and small business) will pay a margins tax of 2/3 of revenue and an income tax 1/3 of revenue
Personal Property Tax Relief
-23% reduction for commercial and certain telecom personal property
-65% reduction for industrial personal property
-10% reduction for eligible natural gas pipeline personal property
New Credits
-Entrepreneurial credit for small firms that create jobs
-Credits for investment made and compensation paid in Michigan, capped at 65% of liability
-Credit for Research & Development expenditures in Michigan, capped at 75% of liability
The MBT may also be accessed in detail at: http://www.legislature.mi.gov
Please contact Bonnie Bochniak with your comments by calling (517) 374-9128 or by email BBochniak@michbusiness.org.
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For additional helpful reference information you may go to the Michigan Business Tax website
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The Michigan Business & Professional Association and The Michigan Food & Beverage Association are your voice to the legislators in Lansing, and your voice gives us that power to communicate.
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Work place smoking bans have been becoming an issue at the state and local levels. We wanted you to be aware of our efforts towards the issue, your options as a business owner, and what you can do to react.
Our Associations' feel it is up to the business owner whether or not to allow smoking in their establishment, not up to state government. As a local business leader, you most likely share our concern with the overeaching efforts by state and county officials to impose blanket smoking bans in the workplace without regard to business, client and employer needs and preferences.
If successful, these initiatives would strip away an employee's legal right to smoke and will harm restaurants, bars and other service industry businesses. Organizations that allow patrons and employees do so because patrons and employees choose to excerise their legal right to smoke. The fair treatment of employees, patrons and businesses requires that patrons and organizations be allowed to make their own decisions about smoking.
We believe that this type of decision should be one that is made by the business owner and not by the government dictating it by law. Our membership is very diverse, and we have heard from those establishments that have a non-smoking establishment and enjoy it, and we have also heard from establishments that would go out of business or suffer loss of revenue if smoking were to be banned in their business. We appreciate all those that have contacted us and shared their opinions with us and look forward to future feedback.
Please contact us if you would like assistance contacting your legislator to share your views with them on this issue as well.
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Michigan passed a comprehensive tort reform law about ten years ago that set the pace for the rest of the country in limiting frivolous lawsuits and returning some sanity to court case levels. Michigan's reasonable liability reforms give our state a clear competitive advantage in the battle for jobs and investments. Repeal and/or weakening of these strong laws would be a giant step backward for the state of Michigan.
Our Associations' support measures to maintain the status quo and leave the current Tort Reform laws as is. We believe Michigan's tort laws appropriately balance a consumer's ability to bring product or service liability suites, while guarding against unnecessary and costly law suits. These measures to change the current laws would put Michigan at risk. We're already struggling to attract new businesses in our state and undoing these laws that protect our business community would send terrible signals to those other companies thinking of investing in Michigan.
Please contact us if you have any questions or comments on this issue. We look forward to hearing from you.
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In a state-by-state comparison, Michigan ranks in the bottom half of most lists compiled by the EPA, Biocycle, and trade organizations, comparing recycling rates, availability, programs and infrastructure. While state-by-state comparison is difficult because of inconsistent data collection and reporting methods, it is clear that Michigan could improve dramatically with recycling efforts and results.
In a state wide poll recently conducted, the general public does understand that more is needed in Michigan when it comes to recycling. An overwhelming 80% of those polled said they liked an idea of generating revenue to help pay for an improvement in our state's recycling efforts.
This revenue would come from proposed legislation by Representative Goeff Hansen named the Penny Plan. This Penny Plan adds one cent transaction fee to all purchases over $2, EXCLUDING purchases, or to incendental sales made from within the business. The Penny Plan also EXEMPTS any small business retailer whose aggregate monthly penny collection is less than $20, which equates into 2,000 transactions per month on average over a twelve month period.
Th one cent transaction fee would be applied at the end of the transaction, and whether or not you have a purchase of $5 or $200, the one cent recycling fee would be added to your bill. The penny would apply to retail transactions only, where the penny can be easily collected and remitted. This limited impact on any individual would have a major potential impact on recycling in Michigan, including the infrastructure for collection, processing and remanufacturing. The funds generated by the penny will enable the state of Michigan to do a better job of recycling hundreds of lead-containing items that are often currently landfilled, such as TV's and computer monitors and other electronic items-with out the need for an advanced disposal fee.
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The Penny Plan would:
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- Create 18,000 jobs in Michigan
- Generate $574 million dollars in payroll
- Add $204 million dollars in new tax revenue
- Raise $40 million dollars a year for comprehensive recycling programs in Michigan
- Keep Michigan in step with environmental safety and clean up
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Our Associations' are members of the Michigan Recycling Partnership (MRP), a coalition of organizations that support the food retailing and distribution industry in efforts to minimize waste and maximize recycling. Please visit their website below to gain more knowledge of Michigan's recycling compared to other states, along with other groups that are members of the coalition and other recycling facts.
Michigan Recycling Partnership website: http://www.michiganrecyclingpartnership.com/index.html
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There is a lot more to recycling than bottles and juice containers. In fact, bottles, cans and drink containers only account for 7% of the solid waste in Michigan. Please join us in supporting the Penny Plan. It is a step in the right direction. This issue could very well be on this year's ballot for the November 2006 election. Please contact our Association if you have any questions or concerns with this plan.
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A valiant effort was put forth by our legislators at the end of this past year to eliminate Michigan's item pricing law which requires each individual item in the store to be priced. House Bill 4636 would have eliminated that need to individually price every item in a store, as long as the store met certain conditions for the posting of prices in general locations. This legislation also stated that the retailer would have to use an automatic checkout system audited at least every calendar year quarter by an independent certified public accountant or accounting firm and be granted a certificate of compliance.
Similar if not exact legislation will be introduced again this year with the hopes of making it to the Governor's desk for her signature. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to get involved by getting in touch with your legislator, please contact our Government Relations Director, Bonnie Bochniak at (517) 374-9128.
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On March 28, 2006, Governor Granholm signed Michigan's minimum wage increase into law. The Michigan Business & Professional Association, along with its sister organization, the Michigan Food & Beverage Association, were against the increase from the beginning, and unfortunately this bill was passed and signed into law in one swift political move.
With this move to raise Michigan's minimum wage, we want to make sure you are not in the dark as to when these raises take affect. The new rates became effective this October 1, 2006. The wage increase will be achieved through a three tier process of increases featured below:
NEW WAGE TIMELINE
October 1, 2006: $6.95 per hour
July 1, 2007: $7.15 per hour
July 1, 2008: $7.40 per hour
Youth Employment Info and Updates In Addition! An important dimension of our service to our members is keeping them abreast of legislation that impacts their businesses. For your information and use are three links below explaining the new minimum wage increase requirements and also the Michigan Youth Training wage, which also recently was updated. Employers are required by law to post these standars and requirements to inform staff members.
General Requirement of Minimum Wage Law Poster
Michigan Minimum Wage Rules
Youth Employment Info and Updates
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The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death. The fair market value of these items is used, not necessarily what you paid for them or what their values were when you aquired them. The total of all of these items is your "Gross Estate." The includible property may consist of Cash and Securities, Real Estate, Insurance, Trusts, Annuities, Business interests and othe assets.
Michigan eliminated its inheritance tax on October 1, 1993. Its estate tax is directly tied to the federal estate tax. In fact, one must complete and file a federal estate tax form before one can complete the corresponding Michigan form. Estates exempt from taxation by the federal government are also exempt from taxation by the Michigan government. Thus, the exemption levels are the same.
There is no estate tax rate, per se, for the State of Michigan. Estate tax liability is equal to the value of the credit allowed by the federal government for state estate taxes. The federal credit for state estate taxes was eliminated in 2005. This had the effect of ending Michigan's estate tax. According to the Michigan Department of Treasury, anyone dying on or after January 1, 2005 will not pay estate tax in the State of Michigan.
Our Associations' will be monitoring the Estate Tax issue on both the state and federal levels to keep you up to date as this effects those family owned businesses.
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Direct Wine Shipment for All! Good news to all those businesses associated with wine shipment in and out of state!
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Federal Judge Bernard Friedman ruled from the bench this November 1st, 2005 that out-of-state wineries may ship to Michigan wine consumers and also in-state wineries may continue to ship to their Michigan consumers as well. The Honorable Friedman wanted to be in step with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in May of this year that confirmed a Michigan law unconstitutional that banned out-of-state wineries from direct shipment to Michigan consumers, as this same law allowed such shipments from in-state wineries.
Since Michigan plays host to 42 wineries and over 100 vineyard growers, this court ruling is crucial to their survival. Another crucial piece is Michigan's legislative sector enacting proper legislation to back up the federal court ruling. With our wineries and vineyards producing more than 1,000 jobs in rural areas, our economy is impacted as well. More specifically the agricultural industry contributes over $75 million in economic activity to the state. In addition, for every $1 dollar spent at Michigan eineries, $5 is generated in lodging, dining, and shopping in our surrounding cities.
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New Wine Shipment Legislation States:
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Minors are protected. A copy of an ID must be sent to the winery or winery can use an age verification service when purchasing wine. Package must be clearly marked at containing alcohol. Shipping company checks ID of person accepting delivery of wine.
1,500 cases can be shipped by each winery each year.
Wineries must be licensed by the state of Michigan as "Direct Shippers" in order to ship their products in state or out of state.
Licenses are grantedupon approval by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLC).
Direct shippers will pay excise taxes quarterly and sales taxes as directed by the Department of Treasury.
Direct shippers will submit reports quarterly to the MLC.
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F. (586) 393-8810