The 2023 legislative session featured missed opportunities to help small businesses, but brought relief to residents, the head of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, the state’s largest business organization, said Thursday.
The General Assembly closed the session at midnight Wednesday, after approving a flurry of bills.
CBIA President and CEO Chris DiPentima applauded the legislature’s passage of the first income tax cut since the tax went into effect in 1991.
But he said the labor force, which has shed about 46,500 people over the last 12 months – as 104,000 jobs remain unfilled – continues to hamper the state’s economy.
“Affordability is a key factor driving the labor shortage and those tax cuts, along with initiatives addressing the housing crisis, will help lower the cost of living to keep current residents and attract new ones,” DiPentima said.
Helping women return to work by strengthening the child care system needs continued focus, DePentima added.
He also applauded lawmakers for extending the 2017 fiscal guardrails, which he said “significantly transformed the state’s fiscal outlook” and helped enable the tax cut.
But the General Assembly missed opportunities to lower small businesses costs, such as failing to restore the pass-through entity tax credit, which was featured in three different budget proposals.
“Why was such a critical measure considered expendable?” he said.
“That’s $60 million that could be returned to 123,000 small businesses, many of them struggling to navigate the labor shortage, inflation, rising healthcare costs, and ongoing supply chain issues,” DiPentima continued.
DiPentima added that the latest extension of the temporary corporate tax surcharge “does little to improve perceptions about Connecticut’s business climate and the state’s economic priorities.”
Also, the legislature did not approve a bill championed by CBIA that would have allowed trade associations in Connecticut to offer large group health plans to their members.
“Healthcare costs are a major challenge for small businesses and we had a broadly negotiated solution that is a game-changer for small employers,” DiPentima said, blaming the bill’s failure on a “deliberate campaign of misinformation and falsehoods.”
CBIA vice president of public policy Eric Gjede commended lawmakers for rejecting what he called “costly workplace mandates,” such as a proposed paid sick leave expansion, unemployment benefits for striking workers, a ban on noncompete agreements and increased workers’ compensation costs.
“Connecticut is among the costliest places in the country to run a business and this session again featured numerous bills that would make that situation worse,” Gjede said.
