Sen. Kay Hagan Wednesday urged the Senate to back a bill that would cut taxes for businesses that hire new workers and buy major new equipment, saying it could add 27,000 new jobs to the state.
“This will help North Carolinians get back to work,” Hagan said in a teleconference with North Carolina reporters. ''I don't understand why we are waiting until after elections to work on solutions to speed up our recovery,'' Hagan said. “We need to work now on a bipartisan basis to move forward on legislation that can help our economy."
The Senate is expected to vote this week on a Democratic bill that would let businesses take tax credits for 10 percent of the difference between their payrolls this year and 2011, whether the money is used to hire workers or give raises.
The measure would also let firms buying major new equipment in 2012, such as machinery, deduct the entire cost of the purchase this year under the so-called bonus depreciation rules. Currently they can only deduct half that amount.
The proposal is given little chance of passage in a divided Congress. The Republicans favor a measure approved in April by the House providing a 20 percent tax deductions to all businesses with fewer than 500 employees.
Hagan said it was clear that after touring the state, that North Carolina residents want action on the economy sooner rather than later.
The estimate of 27,000 jobs came from a private consulting firm that said the legislation would create 990,000 jobs nationally.
