Business Climate Blog

A new report from the Washington state Department of Revenue (DOR) makes a positive suggestion, one that is well overdue but welcome nonetheless: simplify the administration of the state and local Business & Occupation (B&O) tax system.

Several months ago DOR reached out to the small business community and what they found from over 1,100 comments was that the greatest tax complexity problems faced by Washington small businesses related to:

Late Sunday evening the Governor, flanked by the four caucus heads, unveiled the outline of a new compromise on workers' compensation.

San Francisco, often the breeding ground for interesting public policy proposals, decided recently to back off its mandate that would have required retailers of cell phones to label them with radiation levels and pass out material explaining the level of SAR in each device (SAR= Specific Absorption Rate).

This has not been done anywhere else and faced stiff opposition from the wireless industry, which filed suit against the ordinance last year.

CEO Magazine, which issued its annual "Best/Worst States for Business" this week, ranked Washington state below average at 34th. The more telling statistic from this survey of over 500 CEOs is that our state has fallen 18 spots over the last five years. In 2006 Washington ranked an above average 16th.

The survey takes into account "Taxes and Regulation," "Workforce Quality," and "Living Environment."

The best states: Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.