The NH Senate voted for a business tax cut April 21, but didn’t talk about it much. Instead, senators mainly treated House Bill 1221 as a vehicle to attach a one-time infusion of surplus funds to municipalities to help them make retirement payments, with the intention of alleviating property tax bills.

Indeed, one of the few mentions of the proposed cut in the business profits tax rate from 7.6 percent to 7.5 percent came from Sen. Tom Sherman, D-Rye, an announced candidate for Governor, who voted, along with the rest of the Democrats, against it.

“Here we are passing a permanent cut to the business profits tax mainly benefiting outof-state corporations, and we are passing a one-time possible property tax cut which would benefit the vast majority of New Hampshire residents and vast majority of our businesses.”

HB 1221, when it was originally introduced in the House, would have benefited most businesses, since it then included a cut in the rate of the business enterprise tax, which most businesses — usually on the smaller side — tend to pay.

Lawmakers had been cutting both taxes in tandem since 2016. But the BET cut would cost the state about $27 million a year, while the BPT cut would cost $8.5 million. So, the House just cut the BPT rate. Whether it would mainly benefit out-of-state corporations depends on how you look at it. The vast majority of BPT taxpayers are domestic, but the vast majority of the revenue from the BPT comes from a relative handful of out-of-state corporations.

In the end, the Senate approved a measure, which says the state “shall pay to each municipality an amount equal to 7.5 percent of both the normal and accrued liability contributions of each municipality for benefits under the retirement system.” There was no fiscal note to see how much this would cost, but the bill stated that the intention is it should go to relieve property taxes, though there is no guarantee that it will. This is important to businesses as well, since they pay roughly the same amount in property taxes as they do in business taxes. — BOB SANDERS