SERVICE TAX REPEAL PLOTTED

If you are interested in helping call
Small business Association of Michigan at 1.800.362.5461
AND
National Federation of Independent Business/Michigan at 517.485.3409
OR Toll Free at 1.866.458.7584

When I talked with both, they are joining together along with other organizations such as Michigan Taxpayers Alliance to fight the obscene Service Tax (list of services taxed at the end of the article).
I truly believe we have a better chance of making this happen as opposed to recalls. Although I am looking and waiting for someone to come up with a viable recall of Queen Jenny.
After all doesn't the buck stop at the top?

Service tax repeal is plotted
Businesses unleash uproar
October 3, 2007

BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF
FREE PRESS LANSING BUREAU CHIEF
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NEWS06/710030403

LANSING -- Business groups inflamed by the new sales tax on many services are plotting a campaign to repeal it, just days after it passed.
"There are a lot of discussions going on," said Todd Anderson of the Small Business Association of Michigan.

He said measures include a possible petition drive -- which could place the issue on a statewide ballot -- or merely lobbying the Legislature to rescind or make major changes in the new tax.
The tax on services is a key piece of the state budget deal lawmakers finished early Monday, hours after a deadline passed to shut down state government. It will generate about half the new tax revenues needed to help erase a $1.75-billion deficit.

Legislators closely guarded the list of services under discussion for the service tax until Sunday morning.
The Legislature and Gov. Jennifer Granholm also raised the state income tax from 3.9% to 4.35%.

Charles Owens, state director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses/Michigan, said his members are incensed by the new law signed by Granholm to levy a 6% sales tax on a wide array of services. Soon after the new law passed, he said, it became clear the tax would apply to more business services than many first believed.

"We had a meeting with some of our members this morning, and the most-asked question was: 'Where are the recall petitions,' " Owens said, referring to recall campaigns planned against legislators who voted for the tax increases.

The businesses say they fear the tax will raise the price of their services enough to cost them clients who decide to go without the service, such as janitorial, or to change to an out-of-state company that might avoid the tax.

The tax is especially onerous, they say, in business-to-business transactions, where the cost could be passed on through several businesses and ultimately to consumers.

LIST OF SERVICES TAXED 6%

Astrology,Baby shoe bronzing,Bail bonding,Balloon-o-grams,Coin-operated blood pressure testing machine services,Bondspersons,Check room services,Coin-operated personal service machines,Comfort station operation services,Concierge services,Consumer-buying services,Credit card notification services,Dating services,Discount buying services,Social escort services,Fortune-telling services,Genealogical investigation services,House-sitting services,Social introduction services,Coin-operated rental locker services,Numerology services,Palm-reading services,Party-planning services,Pay telephones,Personal fitness trainers,Personal shopping services,Coin-operated photographic machine services,Phrenology services,Porters,Psychic services,Rest-room operation services,Shoeshines,Singing telegrams,House-sitting services,Wedding chapel services,Wedding planners,Consulting (including lobbying),Tanning,Escort services,Massage,Administrative services (like payroll),Investment advising,Janitorial,Armored cars,Private investigators,Packaging and labeling,Landscaping, Skiing,Business service centers,Carpet and upholstery cleaners,Couriers and messengers,Document preparation services,(Tax preparations, wills, buying selling real estate, etc),Self-storage,Transit and ground passenger services,Office administration,Travel agents,Scenic transportation Service contracts,Interior design Tour operators Warehousing and storage