By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Star
State lawmakers are moving to give businesses another chance to ask voters to lower their taxes.
The House Ways and Means Committee voted unanimously late Thursday to put a question on the 2014 ballot to expand a partial exemption that businesses now have. The measure now goes to the full House.
Businesses pay property taxes annually not only on the value of their land and buildings but, unlike homeowners, also on the worth of every piece of equipment they own and use.
Voters have previously allowed businesses to exempt the first $50,000 in equipment. With inflation, that has now risen to more than $68,000.
The new proposal, HCR 2011, would boost that exemption sharply using a formula tied to median earnings in the state. Farrell Quinlan, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, figures the formula would let companies have up to $2.4 million of their equipment untaxed.
