Tech businesses to Oregon lawmakers: please tax us

Business leaders from a Pearl District tech company to a Dallas pizzeria asked lawmakers Tuesday to adopt a new tax on businesses.

Carol Christ, who owns the Dallas Figaro’s Pizza with her husband, urged lawmakers to pass a proposed gross receipts tax so Oregon kindergartners don’t attend school with 28 in a classroom as her granddaughter did this year.

Mat Ellis, CEO of Cloudability Inc. in the Portland Pearl District, asked lawmakers to pass the tax so he no longer loses young, highly skilled employees who love Oregon until their children grow to school age.

“If you want to foster a vibrant tech industry in this state — and the well-paid jobs that come with it — you’ll have to make the necessary investments, which begins with an appropriately funded education system,” Ellis told the Joint Committee on Tax Reform at the Capitol.

Read more: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2017/06/14/tech-businesses-oregon-lawmakers-please-tax-us/393442001/