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Rep. Hudson refines bill to require tax-compliance certificates for larger public contracts
Summary
Representative Zach Hudson presented an amended version of House Bill 2084 that would require contractors to demonstrate tax compliance for public contracts over $25,000, extend certification to significant owners, and commission a Secretary of State study of the business registry.
Representative Zach Hudson said May 29 he worked with stakeholders to produce a revised amendment to House Bill 2084 that would require contractors awarded public contracts over $25,000 to provide a Department of Revenue-issued certificate of tax compliance as a condition of the contract.
Under the introduced version, contractors with contracts over $1,000 already self-attested to compliance. The dash-3 amendment replaces the bill to require a certificate from the Department of Revenue for contracts over $25,000; contracts between $1,000 and $25,000 would continue to use a self-attestation. The Department of Revenue told the committee that its compliance certificate application is an existing online process that can issue certificates quickly when a business is in good standing.
Hudson said the amendment includes owners of a business as well as the business itself, but it limits the owner requirement to owners meeting a minimum ownership threshold (dash-3 originally used 10%; Hudson proposed changing that to 20% to avoid unduly burdening companies with many small shareholders).
The amendment also exempts political subdivisions (cities, counties, transit districts and other entities for which DOR collects taxes) from mandatory inclusion while allowing them to opt in. Hudson said the amendment will be further refined and that he asked the Secretary of State to conduct a study of the State Business Registry to improve the state’s ability to track business ownership and detect bad actors.
Hudson said stakeholders included the League of Oregon Cities, Association of Oregon Counties, Taxpayers Oregon and the Department of Revenue. He asked the committee for feedback and said he hopes to schedule a work session next week. The informational meeting closed with no committee vote.
