The Truth:
97.5% of businesses—and all small businesses—will pay just $150 or no more than they do today under these new measures.. Because Oregon has low property taxes and no sales tax, these businesses will continue to have among the lowest taxes in the entire country.
The only way a small business owner would pay more under Measure 66 is if they are taking home more than $250,000. The Legislative Revenue Office says that 93 percent of small business owners won’t be affected at all by the measure. And most of the other 7 percent are rich people who have a passive investment in a “small business,” like a stockbroker who invested some money in Aunt Dora’s Muffin Shop.
The facts haven’t stopped the lobbyists from trying to use small business owners as spokespeople.
Case Study: The Leuthold Dairy Letter
In November, tobacco lobbyist Mark Nelson mailed a letter to 950,000 people from Carol Marie Leuthold, who identified herself as a Tillamook County dairy farmer. She wrote to express her worry that if the measures pass, it would damage her farm, and she might have to layoff workers or cut their salaries. “We’re worried that the new permanent tax increases legislators passed in June will hurt our farm and the families it supports,” she wrote.
The Truth: As an LLC, Leuthold’s farm will only pay $150 under Measure 67, just like 88% of the businesses in Oregon. Her family might pay more in personal taxes, because it appears they make more than $250,000 per year, but not from her farm. In fact, she’s traveled the world extensively, taking cooking classes last year in France and Italy while her husband went on safari to South Africa.
Plus, between 2002 and 2006, their farm brought in more than $90,000 in federal farm subsidies.
They aren’t struggling farmers. They are, in fact, among the top 2.5% of Oregon taxpayers, due at least in part to taxpayer-funded subsidies. And her farm’s new tax will be just $150.
This is only one example of the corporate lobbyists falsely using small business owners to hide the fact that these measures only impact to rich households that make more than $250,000 and large corporations who’ve been paying just $10 in corporate taxes since 1931.
