From the Indianapolis Star:
Key lawmakers endorsed a Central Indiana mass transit proposal Thursday that could lower the proposed cost of expanding mass transit and shift a portion of those costs from the shoulders of income tax payers to businesses and transit riders.
Sen. Pat Miller, R-Indianapolis, who drafted the proposal based on public input and plans to introduce it in the 2014 Indiana General Assembly, said she believes the more conservative approach to taxing income and sharing of the burden may find support where past mass-transit efforts have failed.
Miller proposes allowing county councils in Marion, Hamilton, Johnson, Madison and Delaware counties to seek their own voter referendums to fund and build a new transit system.
If approved by voters, the councils could then impose an economic development income tax between 0.1-percent and 0.25-percent on workers, which is less than the 0.3-percent income tax increase that transit advocates had lobbied for the past two years.
Income taxes would pay for the expansion and 65 percent of the cost to operate the transit system. But under the new proposal, corporations would have to pay taxes to cover 10 percent of the operating costs through either an income tax or employee tax. And passenger fares would have to cover 25 percent of the cost.
Miller left the specifics of what type of transit system to build to each county.
Previous mass-transit efforts calling for a 10-year, $1.3 billion overhaul in Hamilton and Marion counties have failed to find a majority of legislative support the past two years. That plan would have included doubling the size of IndyGo, building two Bus Rapid Transit routes and adding a BRT route or rail line from Noblesville and Fishers to Downtown Indianapolis along the Nickel Plate rail line. BRT — high-speed buses with limited stops — is increasingly being used in cities across the country as a lower-cost alternative to rail.
Miller has been working to build consensus on transit among lawmakers this year, and the House-Senate committee studying transit voted 12-1 in favor. Only Rep. Mike Speedy, R-Indianapolis, who represents southeast Marion County, voted against against the plan, saying he's concerned about the tax burden.
Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, said local chambers of commerce, the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership and area business have been lobbying the general assembly to approve transit legislation for years, and he believes they need to have a stake in the game. Kenley long has been skeptical of transit.
While the Republican-controlled General Assembly has been reducing or eliminating various taxes on businesses for the past several years, Kenley believes a higher business tax, in this case, is appropriate.
"We felt that they had some stake in this and have advocated strongly for it," Kenley said, "and so we didn't think that asking for them to pay 10 percent of the operating cost would be out of line."
Kevin Brinegar, director of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, said he needed to study the proposal, but he's concerned corporations would not have a say in the referendum. However, Brinegar said the support in general among businesses for transit is real.
"We'll have to analyze (the tax plan) before we have any real comments to make, but I think the support from the business community is there and it is strong. I don't think, for the business community as a whole, that that's necessarily going to be a deal breaker."
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http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2013/11/21/lawmakers-endorse-transit-proposal-tax-plan/3662973/
