jONline

An electronic newsletter from Senator Jon Erpenbach – 1-25-08

Corporate Tax Accountability Act Introduced: Senate Bill 367 would require public companies doing business in Wisconsin to submit publicly accessible annual disclosures of their income and all items that can be used to reduce their Wisconsin tax liability. According to the Institute for Wisconsin's Future (IWF), Wisconsin lost $643 million last year. The bill is authored by Senator Hansen and cosponsored by Senator Erpenbach. See Hansen press release.

More than 99% of businesses in the state would not be affected by the proposed bill because they don't have publicly traded stock. Speaking at the Dec. 19 press conference on the bill, Dr. Jack Norman, the Research Director at IWF, contrasted the corporate responsibility of WI companies such as Harley-Davidson and Sentry Insurance, which pay their full share of state income taxes, with firms such as Microsoft, Merck and Pepsi that have billions in profit nationally but pay no corporate income taxes in Wisconsin. See the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story. Read the IWF Executive Director Karen Royster guest column.

Senate Floor Action this Week: The Senate was in session this week and passed a number of bills, see the complete list here. Senate Bill 138 provides that a parent has the right to recover for loss of society and companionship if the parent's adult child is injured as the result of medical malpractice and an adult child has the right to recover for loss of society and companionship if the adult child's parent dies as the result of medical malpractice. Senate Bill 298, the Homeowner Protection Act seeks to regulate individuals who are currently perpetrating “foreclosure rescue” scams in our communities. Foreclosures are never an easy thing for a family and their community. These so-called ‘foreclosure consultants’ seek to steal the equity from citizens’ homes and only add insult to injury. I am very pleased that my colleagues in the Senate have supported cracking down on these scammers, and I look forward to working with the Assembly on final passage. Assembly Bill 39 authorizes Department of Workforce Development and county child support agencies to have statewide access to the records of all pending paternity actions for purposes related to administering the program, regardless of whether DWD or a county child support agency is a party to the action to which a record relates.

Committee Action this Week: This week in the Senate Health, Human Services, Insurance, and Job Creation Committee took executive action and passed out of committee a few appointments, two technical bills for Department of Health and Human Services, and the following bills: Senate Bill 259 : Prohibiting the use of credit scores in setting premiums for auto and property insurance. Senate Bill 287: Allowing 16 year olds to donate blood with parental consent. Senate Bill 375: Mental Health Parity requiring insurance companies to cover mental health and alcohol and drug abuse treatment.

Outstanding Philanthropic Organization for Dane County Chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans: Dane County Chapters 18,000 members and area Lutheran congregations joined forced to build three Habitat for Humanity homes in Dane County, raise money for a child with cancer and build a handicap accessible play area in a local park. In 2006, Dane County Chapters logged over 114,000 volunteer hours. For this work the local chapter of was recognized as the “Outstanding Philanthropic Organization”. View the Thrivent commitment to Habitat for Humanity online at http://www.thriventbuilds.com/.

This Week the People Say: Vote for a statewide smoking ban, support Senate Bill 150.