During her briefing of a joint meeting of the Legislature’s Appropriations and Taxation Committees on Monday, State Finance Commissioner Kirstin Figueroa said state government would have incurred “an estimated cost of $100 million” if it failed to tax PPP funds.

Later that same day she released a statement saying, “No Maine business will owe State taxes on PPP proceeds.”

In a bizarre decision, the Mills Administration is apparently willing to hold Maine small businesses hostage until the Democrats in Washington decide to give direct federal aid to states.  They are insisting on taking a pound of flesh from rescue funds given our businesses by the federal government.  

Ridiculously, the Administration suggests that not taxing these rescue funds creates a $100 million hole in the supplemental budget – even though there were no rescue funds to tax until a few months ago when Congress allocated the money.  How could they have planned tax funds that they didn’t know were going to exist?

Again the Administration, which suffers from a striking lack of business experience and understanding, is hitting our small businesses when they are hurting the most from the Governor’s policies.

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