Whatchama Column
By Jeb Bladine

Two things stand out for me in the Oregon tax-hike conflict: the Legislature’s rejection of a less onerous tax proposal, and the campaign catchphrase that Oregon businesses “don’t pay their fair share.”

Legislators from Oregon’s ruling political party were drunk with power when they approved Measures 66-67.

They shafted the progressive statewide business organization that pledged to support a more reasonable, temporary tax package. They passed excessive, permanent tax increases and spawned an unnecessary, disingenuous and destructive political campaign.

The pro-tax campaign claims that Oregon businesses don’t pay their fair share. All you need to remember, they say, is $10 — that’s the former minimum income tax for businesses making no profit.

Yes, that $10 filing fee should have been increased long ago to reflect inflation. Instead, it became this year’s convenient, misleading whipping-boy issue.

The News-Register is one of those “greedy corporations” that paid only $10 on its last income tax bill. Our expenses exceeded revenue, so instead of paying taxes on profits, we drew from reserves. Regrettably, we eliminated jobs, cut compensation, slashed operating expenses and dropped one of our weekly editions.

Oregon businesses are struggling in an economy that is expected to languish for years. It requires focus, hard decisions and a little luck, but that’s the reality of a free enterprise system.

It stings when tax proponents tell us we don’t pay our fair share, so let’s look behind that $10 curtain.

Last year, our company paid more than $70,000 in local property taxes. We paid the state $62,500 in employment taxes, plus $6,000 in gasoline and health insurance taxes. (State employment taxes were raised 40-plus percent for 2010.) The federal government tagged us for $210,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes plus $10,000 in employment and gas taxes, and we paid another $6,000 in miscellaneous state and federal taxes. Grand total, $364,500.

That doesn’t include our cost for acting as Oregon’s tax collector: We withheld $150,000 from employee salaries and sent it the state.

Who pays all those taxes? Employees, through lower compensation; customers, through higher prices; charities, through reduced contributions; owners, through required personal investments.

So it goes. We’re not asking for sympathy. But please, while government tries to raise enough money to pay its bloated PERS bill, don’t malign Oregon businesses with that $10 big lie.

Jeb Bladine is editor and publisher of the News-Register.