President and CEO of BIPEC Derek Easley highlights bills that determined legislators scores for 2021 report card
Derek Easley sat down with Y’all Politics just days after BIPEC released their 2021 report card for lawmakers. Easley highlighted the 17 bills they used for scoring this year which range from transportation issues to Mflex funding.
Easley said this is the first time to his knowledge that no House of Representative members were awarded an A, or a Business Champion rating. However, a B score is still considered very pro-business.
For House members it was two bills that seemed to bring the scores down. One was the original legislation proposed by Speaker of the House Philip Gunn to phase out the individual income tax (HB 1429), the second was the bond bill where an attempt was made to add the income tax language (SB 2971).
Easley said BIPEC’s concern with the income tax bill was the increase in taxes originally placed on industries like: manufacturers, farms, timber, dairy and automobile dealers. The bill called for a tax increase to 4% for those areas in order to help compensate for the revenue lost with the individual income tax.
He believes that will be an issue that is looked at again in 2022.
That portion of the bill was later removed but all businesses would still pay more in purchases. Easley said BIPEC does support an effort to do away with individual income tax as long as it does not negatively impact businesses.
You can read the full report on the 2021 scorecard below:
No A’s for MS House members in BIPEC’s latest “Business and Jobs” report card
BIPEC is a non-profit (501 (c) (6)) membership organization that represents broad-based business and professional interests having operations and marketing interests in Mississippi. Easley said their objective is to provide transparency to the public regarding where legislators stand on pro business and jobs issues.
Sarah Ulmer
