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SPONSOR: |
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DATE TYPED: |
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HB |
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SHORT TITLE: |
Developmental Disability Employer Tax Credit |
SB |
828 |
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|
ANALYST: |
Neel |
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REVENUE
Estimated Revenue |
Subsequent Years Impact |
Recurring or
Non-Rec |
Fund Affected |
|
FY03 |
FY04 |
|
|
|
|
($2,900.0) |
($3,200.0) |
Recurring |
General
Fund |
|
|
|
|
|
(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Revenue Decreases)
LFC files
Responses
Received From
Taxation
and Revenue Department (TRD)
Department
of Health (DOH)
Health
care policy Commission (HPC)
SUMMARY
Synopsis
of Bill
SB828 enacts a new section to the Income Tax Act and the Corporate Income and Franchise Tax Act to provide tax credits for employers who employ developmentally disabled persons and pay them wages that are equal to or exceed 125% of the Federal Minimum Wage.
“Developmental disability” means a disability of a person which is attributable to mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism or neurological dysfunction which requires treatment or habilitation similar to that provided to persons with mental retardation.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
TRD notes the
following assumptions:
Statistics
on developmentally disabled persons are difficult to acquire. However, disabled
persons likley comprise about .5 percent of the
ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS
None
OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES
The HPC provided the
following background information:
Developmentally disabled in
·
The Olmstead decision (1999)
determined that unnecessary institutionalization of persons with disabilities
is a form of discrimination, and required the states to develop integration
plans to administer services and programs for the developmentally disabled in
the most integrated setting appropriate for each individual.
·
There
are an estimated 337,430 New Mexicans who have a disability of some sort, and
DOH estimates that more than 27,000 of these have mental retardation or other
developmental disabilities.
(
(
·
Of
15.6 million working-age adults with disabilities, only 34.6% were employed in
1993.
· Employer attitudes are potential barriers to employment for people with disabilities.
·
Employers
were more likely to have positive attitudes toward disabled persons with
physical or sensory disabilities than those with intellectual or psychiatric
disabilities.
·
Employers
are generally more positive about workers who were placed by vocational,
employment, and supported-employment programs.
·
Persons with disabilities have difficulty
gaining employment and feel excluded.
Tax credits and
deductions
·
The
State tax credit proposed in SB828 would benefit the State by encouraging employers
to hire developmentally disabled persons, thereby making those persons relatively
more self-reliant and less dependent on State programs. This should save the State some financial
resources – and will no doubt result in increased autonomy and self-esteem and
an improved quality of life for many developmentally disabled New Mexicans.
SN/njw