Dan Bosley and DOR

By Steve Poftak
April 30th, 2008

Maybe this is just news to me, but I was interested to read Dan Bosley (Chair of the House Economic Development Committee) sharp comments on the Department of Revenue. It’s a long quote, but he makes a number of criticisms that are worth hearing:

I am very leery of [DOR's] numbers for good reason. In this bill, their revenue figure for the administration’s proposal was tens of millions greater than their figure for House generated revenues even though the language of the bill was identical coming out of committee! This is not the first time this has happened, raising, I think, legitimate questions about their numbers. In the Life Science bill, my committee asked for an analysis of extending the Governor’s tax breaks without the yearly limitations included in his bill. We asked several times and were told they could not answer the question nor should they as the Governor’s bill limited tax credits to $25 million per year. Not only is it not their role to refuse a request based on policy, but it calls into question the honesty in delivering numbers in a timely and accurate manner. After being requested again by House Ways and Means, a report was sent to us on the effect of the administration’s suggested tax credits. In looking at the numbers, it was immediately apparent that the numbers were suspect. One company had given us a figure, based on their tax liability that was larger than the DOR number for every life science company eligible for this credit. The second set of numbers we received were just as bad. I believe that the Department of Revenue based on their responses, is more interested in setting policy than enforcing it. It is the responsibility of the Governor and the Legislature to set tax policy. The Department of Revenue should provide revenue analysis that is not tainted by politics or policy.

And his remedy is intriguing:

I believe we need an independent budget office to give us honest estimates without political pressure from any side. We need an office like the Congressional Budget Office – bipartisan and independent to study all our fiscal and revenue proposals for their cost and financial impact. This is the only way we can get numbers that are beyond question.