By Dayton Daily News...
Businesses complain to panel about commercial activity tax
State reps are looking to rewrite Ohio’s tax code.
By Jeremy P. Kelley 

DAYTON — A half-dozen business owners from the Miami Valley and around Ohio on Monday urged 10 state representatives on the Tax Structure Study Committee to address what they see as the unfairness of Ohio’s commercial activity tax. 

“We all need to pay taxes, and we’re willing to pay our fair share, but this is a grossly inequitable tax system on the businesses in this state,” said Jerry Parisi, CEO of I-Supply, a Fairborn-based food and paper distributor. 

Parisi and several others said the CAT, which is assessed on gross receipts, disproportionately hurts businesses with a high volume of transactions, but low profit margin per sale. 

Gary Robson, a small fuel distributor and convenience store owner from Dublin, said his distribution business makes pennies of profit per gallon of gas sold, regardless of price. But when that price goes up, so do his gross receipts, and therefore, his CAT liability. After paying $50,594 in CAT in 2010, he’s on pace to pay nearly $100,000 in 2011, and said he’s already cut one employee due to tax cost. 

“How do we fix Ohio so we have a competitive tax structure that provides needed revenues to the government, but allows us to compete with the South and West for businesses and jobs?” asked Matt Mayer, president of the Buckeye Institute. 

State Rep. John Adams, R-Sidney, said the challenge is how to make the tax code more fair for Ohioans, without adding more exemptions and credits to an already large web. 

“The bottom line is, can you write a tax code that is broad enough and fair enough where you don’t have winners and losers?” Adams said. “I don’t know that that can ever be the case. ... In the next three years, you’re going to see something changed in the tax code. How extensive, I don’t know, but that’s the purpose of these meetings.” 

Read it at the Dayton Daily News