Dozens of business owners and executives flocked to the Maryland State House in Annapolis on Wednesday to oppose a proposal to tax business services that Democratic lawmakers say could help close a budget gap that is more than $3 billion.
The representatives of small and large businesses alike argued that a 2.5 percent tax on business-to-business services proposed as an alternative to Gov. Wes Moore’s plan to overhaul the state tax system as a way to raise more revenue would eat into their profit margins, raise operational costs, and potentially shutter some companies while driving others out of the state.
“This would be a big gut punch,” said Juliana Buonanno, CEO and founder of a Baltimore-based company called TechSlice that develops software for medical device companies.
The 32-year-old single mother who was born and raised in Maryland said that her six-person company would be hit twice by the tax — first on the services that TechSlice provides to other businesses and then on the accounting and human resources services TechSlice outsources. The back-of-the-napkin math Buonanno has done on how the tax would cost her company tens of thousands of dollars could force her to move the enterprise to another state, she said.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Katie Shepherd over at The Washington Post
