Ky. Chamber of Commerce forum in Corbin outlines tax reform efforts

The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with the Southern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce held an informational session at The Corbin Center Tuesday morning to get input from local businesses on the Kentucky Chamber’s planned legislative agenda this spring, which includes tax reform and tax code improvements. Over two dozen people attended the event.

Over two dozen people turned out Tuesday morning to talk about Kentucky’s workforce opportunities, tax code improvements and other key indicators of businesses competitiveness with members of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Amy Cloud, Senior Vice-President of Public Affairs Kate Shanks, and Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Charles Aull were on hand at The Corbin Center for the presentation and to get input from local business leaders on what they need to be more competitive ahead of the 2022 legislative session.

Kate Shanks, senior vice president of public affairs, was one of two keynote speakers.

“Our job at the Kentucky Chamber is to advocate for Kentucky businesses. We are in the Capitol every day during the legislative session working of legislation, and working to pass bills that are important to the business community.”

Shanks noted that over the summer the chamber’s board of directors decided to double down on tax reform during this upcoming legislative session, which will be both a budget and revenue setting session.

“We made changes in 2018 to improve our tax code competitiveness relative to other states. We thought what’s next?” she said.

Dr. Charles Aull, senior policy analyst, was the other keynote speaker.

The chamber is also looking to address workforce issues.

“We saw steady job growth for years after the Great Recession. Right before the pandemic hit, we had record unemployment in our state. We have seen significant economic investments coming to Kentucky,” Shanks said. “We know workforce challenges are huge right now.”

Currently though Kentucky has the third worst workforce participation rate in the country, or the percentage of adults that participate in the workforce by either working or looking for jobs.

About 120,000 Kentuckians exited the workforce during the pandemic, and many of them haven’t come back, Aull said.

Shanks noted that Kentucky is currently 19^th in the country in terms of tax rate competitiveness, and the chamber would like to see it move up into the top 10 nationally.

“In low income tax states what we have found is that population growth, GDP growth, and workforce participation are all higher. There is a very strong collation between tax policies and what we are seeing in terms of growth for both workers and our economy,” Shanks added. “It is not something that we have to figure out. It has been figured out. We just have to do it.”

Aull added that Kentucky has to get its tax reform right because if it is done wrong, the state could pay severe economic consequences.