PETITIONS WOULD DO AWAY WITH TAX CODE; NFIB HEAD SPEAKS AT LOCAL GATHERING

Petitions to scrap the federal tax code will be presented to lawmakers next month at the National Small Business Summit.

The petitions, containing a million or more signatures, call for abolishing the tax code by 2000, said Brad Jones, Missouri state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

"We're very, very excited" by the petition drive, Jones said Thursday night. "We're asking that we put together something that is simpler, something that is fairer."

The NFIB's membership is "split right down the middle" over alternatives to the current system, he said. Half favor a national sales tax while the other half lean toward a "flatter, fairer income tax."

"Whatever it is, it has to be better than it is right now," Jones said.

He spoke to the Southeast Missouri Pachyderm Club at Holiday Inn in Cape Girardeau.

The existing tax code "weighs more than Hammurabai's Code," Jones said. "And that was written in stone."

The code is unfair and too confusing, he said.

Tax reform is a popular topic right now, he said, pointing to efforts to reform the Internal Revenue Service.

In Missouri, the NFIB represents 12,000 small businesses.

Small businesses made some gains this year through legislation approved by the Missouri General Assembly, Jones said, including increases in state tax deductions for children and elderly dependents.

Another victory slipped through in the fine print of an economic development bill, Jones said.

An amendment to the bill stipulates that municipalities cannot set a minimum wage rate higher than the state's, Jones said.

"Labor groups didn't like this very much," he said.

The "three-line amendment" will make a big difference for small business owners, Jones said.

"Sometimes your big victories come in small packages," he said.

Another measure would require utility companies such as AmerenUE or Laclede Gas to establish separate, for-profit corporate entities for handling warranty work on appliances or HVAC systems, he said.

Since utilities are guaranteed profits by the Public Service Commission, allowing them to handle such work was unfair competition for contractors, he said.

Other bills also furthered workers' compensation reform efforts and gave sales tax exemptions to small businesses for replacement parts and machineries.

He called this year's legislative session, which ended May 15, "one of the nastiest, most contentious sessions" he had ever witnessed.