LANSING – Encouraged by the Senate’s action to eliminate the surcharge on the Michigan Business Tax, some of the largest business groups in the state called on the House to follow the Senate and approve the three-year phase-out.

And responding to criticism that the action by the Senate in SB 838 helped businesses at the expense of working families, Michigan Chamber of Commerce President Richard Studley said most of the working poor want good jobs. Eliminating the surcharge on the MBT could help provide them.

Besides, if lawmakers do not want to enact the freeze on the Earned Income Tax Credit that the Senate approved, there are other ways to pay for the phase-out, Studley said, including more limitations to the state’s film credit or eliminating that credit, or putting more limits on Michigan Economic Growth Authority grants or having a one-year moratorium on the grants.

Along with the state chamber, most of the state’s other top business organizations, including the Michigan Manufacturers Association, the Detroit Regional Chamber, the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, the Lansing Regional Chamber, the Michigan Retailers Association, the Michigan Grocers Association and the Michigan Association of Realtors, were at the press conference calling on the House to act on the Senate-passed measures.

Jeanne Englehart, president of the Grand Rapids Chamber, said Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the House should follow the Senate in approving the phase-out and completing work on the 2009-10 budget.

The Senate approved the phase-out on Thursday as part of a revenue package to help reduce the cuts in the state’s K-12 School Aid budget. Studley said lost in some of the furor over eliminating the surcharge is the fact that the Senate Republicans took a major step in acting on tax changes which they had previously said they would not do.

And Studley said afterwards that Granholm has said she would back a phase-out of the surcharge if there was a way to pay for it, and the Senate has provided that way.

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