Mo. Senate approves business tax breaks

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - An expansion of a tax break for businesses that provide health insurance passed the Senate on Monday, but only after being widened to grant tax breaks for many other things, including biotechnology research, jet fuel and filming movies in Missouri.

The broad economic development bill also was changed to make ticket scalping legal. Supporters said it's wrong to punish the guy who winds up with more tickets than he needs for a game while allowing big companies to turn around and resell tickets.

'We have turned regular people into criminals with this thing. It's ridiculous,' Sen. Matt Bartle said.

Sen. John Griesheimer, who handled the bill, warned many ideas may get tossed as House and Senate members work to draft the final legislation.

Some Republican senators blasted their colleagues for loading up the bill with so many tax credits, saying they will end up hurting middle-class taxpayers.

'We've become drunk on tax credits, absolutely drunk,' said Bartle, R-Lee's Summit. 'It's like bacteria growing. The tax credits are eventually going to squeeze the middle class taxpayer so extraordinarily. It constitutes government picking winners and losers in the marketplace.'

The Senate passed the overall measure on a 28-6 vote, and the bill returns to the House, which had previously passed its own version. A compromise between the chambers likely will have to be worked out.

A key provision of the underlying bill expands a relatively new program offering tax breaks to businesses that pay a certain level of wages and provide health insurance.

'We desperately need the Quality Jobs provision in this,' said Griesheimer, R-Washington.

The program allows employers to keep a share of the withholding taxes on their workers' paychecks, rather than turning them over to the state, if they pay at least half the premium of their employees' health insurance and pay their employees at least the average wage in that county.

The amount of employee tax withholdings companies can retain is unlimited. But if companies qualify for greater incentives than the withholding taxes cover, then they can receive state tax credits. Those tax credits have been limited to $12 million a year statewide.

When the bill passed the House, it removed the $12 million annual cap.

Gov. Matt Blunt had proposed raising the cap on tax credits to $24 million a year, and the Senate version sets the cap higher, at $30 million.

Griesheimer said Senate budget writers had concerns about eliminating the cap.

The bill also was amended to bar employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants from receiving the state tax credits, though some said current law already covered that.

The Senate also approved an amendment creating a tax credit for companies that build alternative fueling stations. People who purchase hybrid vehicles also could get an income tax deduction, and people also could receive breaks when they buy biodiesel or E-85 ethanol-blended gasoline. The alternative fuel measures also won initial approval in the Senate last week as part of a separate bill.

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