Mesa County slims business tax by half million dollars to encourage growth and new businesses
Mesa County is taking the difficult, but bold step to reduce the tax burden for local businesses. They’re adopting a real, salient policy to encourage business development and retention in a depressed economy.
Two Mesa County Commissioners announced the change on Thursday, Dec 10, 2009. The elimination of taxes on the first $150,000 of equipment a business owns may cost the county as much as a quarter of its usual intake from business personal property taxes. The commissioners believe it’s worth it if the reduction encourages businesses to move to or expand in Mesa County. They believe it’s enough to pay sales tax on the purchase and it shouldn’t be redundant to pay to use that same equipment. The two were Mesa County Commissioners Janet Rowland and Craig Meis.
El Paso (Colorado Springs)and Arapahoe (Littleton and Englewood)counties in Colorado reduced their business personal property taxes.
Mesa County Commissioner Meis said he hopes the tax reduction lasts longer than just the 2010 budget in Mesa County. The budget will be adopted Monday with cuts and rearrangements made to accommodate the tax reduction.
The county will accomplish this benefit by reducing its overall mill rate, which is part of property tax calculations, from 15.093 mills to 11.335 mills.
Mesa County School District 51 also reduced it’s mill rate Wednesday. The total mills for the district will be reduced by 1.905 mills next year to 34.266 mills. That means lower property taxes for people living in the county and school district boundaries.
Mesa County has pushed for five years to convince the Colorado Legislature to eliminate the business personal property tax, Meis said. The impetus seems to have been realized at the state level.
Rep. Laura Bradford, R-Collbran, sat on the interim business personal property tax task force at the Capitol in 2009 and heard from several business owners either taken by surprise by the tax or how much it cost. A beer brewer in Boulder told the committee he had to lay off two workers because his tax bill was more than $42,000.
The tax reduction will encourage businesses to spend more on stimulating the local economy, applauded Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Diane Schwenke.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Read it here
Posted: December 12th, 2009 under Grand Junction Sentinel.
Tags: business equipment tax, Colorado, colorado economy, Mesa County