Manufacturers report modest building

Rhode Island companies announced construction of three new manufacturing facilities and the expansion of just one during 2009, Site Selection magazine recently reported.
The publication of trade organization Industrial Asset Management Council explored industrial growth across all 50 states in its March issue.
The magazine said Ohio announced construction of 58 new facilities and the expansion of 168, and the building or expansion of 155 other facilities such as offices or research and development facilities, putting it at the top of the list. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Wyoming announced construction of just one facility during the entire year.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland told the magazine that small cuts to income and the sales taxes helped spur growth. He also cited the state’s recently adopted growth receipts tax, similar to one floated last fall in Rhode Island by Gary Sasse, then director of the R.I. Department of Revenue. A gross-receipts tax is a tax on all the income of a business without deductions or regard to profitability. Ohio called its version the Commercial Activity Tax, of CAT.
“The purpose of that reform, which passed before I became governor but that I have embraced, was to have the implementation of the CAT, or commercial activity tax, that would be very low rate but broadly based. That would allow for the elimination of the corporate franchise tax and inventory tax and these other taxes that we felt were onerous and discouraging to business growth in Ohio,” Strickland told Site Selection.
This year marked the fourth consecutive time that Ohio topped the list.