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Connecticut is already considered among the least business-friendly states in the country, and that perception is about to get worse on Monday, when an unemployment interest surcharge on businesses is due. Yet another tax on businesses will drive business out of Connecticut, said House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., a Norwalk Republican.
According to the Department of Labor, on average the interest costs will amount to about $25.50 per worker for every employer. Additional assessments will be applied in each of the next two years to cover the interest, but there is no clear plan yet on how the principal loans will be repaid, Cafero said. Undermining the notion by [Democratic] Gov. Daniel P. Malloy that Connecticut is Open for Business, 73,000 companies in the state will be receiving bills totaling $30 million to cover interest costs on the $800 million the state borrowed from the federal government to provide unemployment checks to laid off workers, Cafero said. Cafero blasted both Malloy and the Democratic-controlled state legislature for failing to provide funding to help businesses with the additional surcharge. He suggested some of the $158.9 million state surplus be used to do so.
On top of all the other bills state government has sent to employers across Connecticut, add this one: the interest on money borrowed from the federal government to support unemployed workers, Cafero said.
David Kay, owner Spectacles in New Canaan, doesnt think its fair for businesses to be hit with an additional burden. The surcharge is just not right, said Kay, a lifelong town resident who has run his business since 1976. All the people of Connecticut should have to pay for unemployment and not just business owners.
Paul S. Timpanelli, president and CEO of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, which includes members in Fairfield and Easton, said his group opposes the new surcharge but doesnt believe the states surplus should be used to ease the burden. As a business group we dont look fondly on anything that increases the cost of doing business during these difficult times, said Timpanelli. But we also dont think the timing is good to be suggesting alternate ways of using the state surplus.
Timpanelli added, however, that the burden on business in Connecticut is unacceptable, and this surcharge only adds to the cost of doing business in the state.
Cafero said the states unemployment fund officially went broke in 2009 at the height of the recession when more than 110,000 people lost their jobs and wiped out the unemployment fund that companies pay into.
Cafero said he wrote to Democratic leaders last October, a year after the fund when broke, asking them to join a bi-partisan effort to ease the burden on companies, but received no response. This legislative session Republicans introduced a bill on repaying the federal government, but Democrats blocked the initiative, he said.
Now, companies that have already paid into the unemployment fund will get stuck with another bill and theres more to come, Cafero said. Employers have had it with more taxes every time they turn around. And now another one is due Aug. 1.
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