By KRWG News
New Mexico – Senate Bill 6 (SB 6), sponsored by Senator Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), proposes to close the corporate tax loophole. The bill is scheduled for its first hearing Friday in the Senate Corporations Committee. Sen. Wirth will present a new version of the bill, which also lowers the corporate tax rates for all businesses paying corporate tax.
"It's a win-win for New Mexico businesses. Lower tax rates and a level playing field," said Sen. Wirth. "No company should be gaming the system to avoid paying their fair share."
Sen. Wirth also said, "Lowering tax rates and broadening the tax base is sound policy for New Mexico's future."
With the hearing for this bill now scheduled, New Mexico's business community is speaking up. Vicki Pozzebon, Executive Director of the Santa Fe Alliance, which supports independent businesses said:
"We have been supporting Sen. Wirth's bill to close corporate tax loopholes and capture combined reporting revenue for the state of New Mexico for five years. It's time our lawmakers show support of our locally owned businesses and that we care about making New Mexico a level playing field for every business."
Co-owner of a 32-year-old independent business in Santa Fe called the Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse, Dorothy Massey, said, "A level playing field is the only open and honest way to have real competition, and the only way to ensure the health of a school yard, a city, a state and a nation."
New Mexico is the last western state with a corporate tax to allow multistate companies the option of filing a separate tax return. Twenty-three other states already require this type of combined corporate tax reporting.