WisBusiness: Proposed state budget includes measures to boost businesses

Gov. Scott Walker’s $60 billion, two-year budget plan shuffles the state bureaucracy in what he says is an effort to achieve savings and efficiencies.

Walker’s proposed budget also has some measures aimed at helping state businesses.

State tourism businesses could benefit from a boost in marketing funds. HIs budget proposes boosting tourism marketing from around $10 million this year up to $12.5 million next year and $15 million the year after that.

The budget also has a new $36 million capital gains tax break for investors in Wisconsin companies who hold those investments for five years.

Walker campaigned last year against combined reporting for corporate taxes and the new tax bracket Gov. Jim Doyle implemented for the state’s top earners in the 2009-11 budget. But Walker didn’t propose repealing either in his budget, and his staff said the feedback it received from the private sector suggested the money could be better used in other areas to spur job creation.

He did propose tweaking combined reporting to allow companies with losses to carry those losses forward and deduct their liability in future years, cutting an estimated $46 million in state revenues.

Some departmental shifts could affect businesses as well.

The Department of Licensing and Regulation grows into the Department of Safety and Professional Services, absorbing some of the functions of the eliminated Department of Commerce, as well as commercial soil erosion oversight from DNR and other programs from DATCP and Vets.

The Office of Energy Independence would be eliminated and folded into the Department of Administration’s energy division. And an Office of Business Development would be created in DOA.

See more on the budget at the WisPolitics Budget Blog