Schumer-Manchin Bill Will Impose $100 Million Tax Hike on AZ-based Republic Services

According to Elizabeth Warren, the Phoenix-based employer of 2,250 Arizonans will get hit with a $100 million annual tax increase.

A major tax increase in the Senate Democratic reconciliation bill will impose a $100 million annual tax increase on Phoenix-based Republic Services — which employs 2,250 Arizonans — according to an analysis of the policy published by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

As noted by the Arizona Republic newspaper, the company is “the second largest waste-disposal company in the nation and Arizona’s most valuable public company” and has 28,000 front line workers nationwide.

Senate Democratic leadership is trying to convince Arizona Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly to vote for the bill as the U.S. economy teeters in a recession.

For companies that invest heavily in machinery and equipment, the bill’s corporate tax increase on “book income” hits especially hard.

And the burden of corporate tax increases is borne by households in the form of higher costs of goods and services and in slower wage growth.

The bill will kill 30,000 jobs according to the Tax Foundation, which notes that corporate tax increases are destructive to economic growth:

Economists have found in more than two dozen published studies that corporate taxes harm economic growth. An OECD study examining data from 63 countries concluded that corporate income taxes are the most economically damaging way to raise revenue, followed by individual income taxes, consumption taxes, and property taxes.

Sen. Warren’s mention of Republic Services can be found on page 5 of her report analyzing the policy included in the bill.

Do Arizona’s senators really want to cast the deciding vote for this?

Opposition to the bill is growing. Today the National Association of Manufacturers released a coalition letter signed by over 100 groups urging Senators to oppose the tax increase.

Signatories include:

Arizona Farm and Ranch Group

Arizona Manufacturers Council

Arizona Builders Alliance

Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry

Arizona Bioindustry Association

Arizona Transportation Builders Association

Chandler Chamber of Commerce

Greater Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce

The groups write:

Accelerated depreciation — the ability to recover the cost of acquiring an asset over a short time span, sometimes as soon as the year of purchase — has been in the tax code in some form since at least 1958. This policy encourages companies to invest in capital assets, like machinery and equipment, that power long-term economic growth. But unlike the tax code, the financial accounting rules upon which a book tax is based require depreciation over the useful life of an asset. As such, a book tax would effectively eliminate this long-established incentive to invest in the United States.

It is clear that a book tax would threaten American competitiveness. The broad impact of this measure is reflected in the group of undersigned stakeholders. As such we respectfully encourage the Senate oppose a book tax in the final reconciliation legislation.