Poll: Business community favors taxes, not budget cuts, to fund roads

The business community favors new taxes to fund road improvements, not a mix of budget cuts, according to a new poll by Crain’s Detroit Business.
The survey of 300 business owners and managers found that 56 percent said some combination of taxes and fees should be the path chosen by the Legislature in the wake of the overwhelming defeat of Proposal 1 on May 5.

Sales or gas tax hikes are the preferred funding sources while only 31 percent supported generating road money through cuts to the existing state budget. Reductions in K-12 education were especially unpopular.

The poll, conducted by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA as part of a shared-reporting project with Crain’s and Bridge Magazine, also found a surprising degree of willingness among employers to dramatically broaden Michigan’s new corporate income tax.

According to Bridge, business owners were nearly split on whether to expand the state’s 6 percent corporate income tax to an estimated 100,000 small companies – those not considered “C corporations” -- that currently are exempt from paying the tax. Forty-seven percent of respondents favored the idea, while 45 percent were opposed.