Co-ops: Oil Tax Headed in Right Direction—Out of Budget
MADISON, Wis. (June 18, 2009) – The state budget bill that cleared the Wisconsin Senate Wednesday night “did what needed to be done with the gross receipts tax on motor fuel sales,” according to Bill Oemichen, President and CEO of Cooperative Network, “and the job now that it’s out of the budget is to make sure it stays out,” Oemichen said.
Opposed from the start by the statewide co-op trade association, the new tax plan approved by the Joint Finance Committee “painted a bulls-eye on the backs of cooperative fuel retailers and their member-owners,” Oemichen said. “The Assembly made important progress by limiting the damage and the Senate made even more progress when it removed the tax from the bill.”
Cooperative Network maintained that co-ops and their members would have been uniquely harmed by the tax because as non-profit businesses, they return net margins to their member-owners. The tax would have diminished or eliminated those margins, wiping out both the payments to members and the working capital co-ops plow back into growing their operations and Wisconsin’s rural economy, the organization said.
Wednesday night’s Senate action sends the budget bill to a conference committee to reconcile differences between the versions passed by the two houses.
“We will be strongly supporting the Senate’s action in hopes that this tax plan doesn’t resurface in the conference committee,” Oemichen said. “We fully realize this budget process is far from over and the oil tax could come back. For the sake of jobs and economic growth in small rural communities, we fervently hope that doesn’t happen.”
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