I am responding to a letter (April 3) criticizing the Baldacci administration for its support for removing personal property taxes on businesses. I support the governor on this issue.

Maine is one of the few states that actually taxes business for the investments it makes in equipment. That equipment makes it profitable for business to hire workers and buy equipment in the first place, which helps out other businesses, which hire more employees.

Imagine that instead of employees being able to write off work-related expenses on their income taxes for things such as use of a car or equipment for a home office, they actually had to pay more in taxes. That’s what it is like to be a business in the state of Maine.

While Maine does offer tax breaks such as the BETR program to those businesses that update their equipment and municipalities sometimes offer TIFs, people forget that there are still businesses that have to pay personal property taxes that are huge in comparison to the net income they are actually generating from that equipment.

Finally, as a young resident of Maine who has had to see classmates leave this state to find work because of this state’s anti-business climate, I am getting tired of this talk of “big corporations” that are unfairly looking for tax breaks. We need to wake up in this state to the fact that when we recklessly go after business, not only do businesses leave, but also our friends and family.
Matt Mower, Lewiston