ADVOCACY in focus
2016 OSCPA Tax Reform Task Force report remains invaluable By Gary Hunt, OSCPA director of content strategy & media In January, OSCPA Tax Policy Director Greg Saul, Esq., CAE, testified before state lawmakers. As he often has over the past six years, he came prepared with a document that has served as both a visual reminder and an educational tool about the influence of CPAs. Lawmakers were discussing House Bill 234, which would repeal the state’s commercial activity tax. Saul told them that CPAs have studied the issue closely and determined that eliminating the tax without a replacement could lead to unintended consequences for Ohio’s business environment. “OSCPA has a longstanding position that the CAT is effective if the following criteria remain intact: the rate is low, the base is broad, the exemptions are few, and compliance is simple,” he said, holding up a copy of the Society’s 2016 Ohio Tax Reform Task Force report. Six years after its publication, the report remains an influential guiding force, both
4 | CPA Voice
for legislators and for the direction of accounting profession advocacy in Ohio. “As I held it up, I told them, ‘I know many of you have seen our report over the years and it's been a guidebook,’” Saul said later. “Some of the legislators were looking at it as I testified.” OSCPA in 2015 formed the Ohio Tax Reform Task Force, a group of seasoned CPA tax professionals who advised or worked for businesses across every sector in the state. The group spent a year studying Ohio’s tax policies before bringing their collective knowledge together into key recommendations. As OSCPA President & CEO Scott Wiley, CAE, wrote at the time, the initial goal of the resulting report was to inform the state government’s 2020 Tax Policy Study Commission via OSCPA’s “recommended approach of moving toward a simpler, more competitive tax structure while minimizing the effects or pain on any particular segment.
“We are pleased to present these recommendations to the Ohio 2020 Tax Policy Study Commission and stand ready to assist Ohio in making our state a model for excellent tax policy,” Wiley wrote in the introduction. Lawmakers have adopted – in part or in full – several of the recommendations in the report: Reduce the income tax brackets from nine to preferably three, but no more than five. Such a move, the task force wrote, would bring greater simplicity to the personal income tax structure and make Ohio more competitive with surrounding states. The state’s 2021 budget bill continued a reduction trend begun in 2017 when Ohio had nine brackets by consolidating further from five to four, bringing Ohio’s top rate down to 3.99% on 2021 income greater than $110,650; and increasing the income level at which the first tax bracket begins, from $22,150 to $25,000. These steps have saved Ohio
