KEY LEGISLATION:
MRA to Present Legislative Agenda to House Committee
MRA Chairman and CEO Larry Meyer
will present retail’s legislative agenda to
the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Meyer, a former Michigan Department
of Commerce director, was invited by lawmakers to discuss retail’s
key
legislative issues and the state of the retail economy.
Among the issues Meyer will address
are: the need to modernize the state’s
archaic item-pricing law, proposals to restructure the Single Business
Tax
and the need to solve the problem of SUTA dumping. He will also discuss
strategies to allow in-state pharmacies to better compete with mail-order
firms, as well as cost-saving proposals for the Medicaid system.
Central-Fill Pharmacy Legislation in Committee
A new bill would allow pharmacies
in Michigan to use centralized
prescription processing. HB 4434, sponsored by Rep. Scott Hummel (R-DeWitt),
would also remove the prohibition against Michigan pharmacies participating
in mail order.
The bill received a hearing in the
House Health Policy Committee but was not
taken up for a vote. MRA is working with the sponsor’s office
as well as the
committee chair on removing one potential problem in the bill: requiring
a
unique identifier to be posted on the prescription bottle. The requirement
appears redundant and would put yet another item on already text-heavy
labels. The bill could move from committee to the House floor as early
as
next week.
Treasury Changing Sales Tax Table
Beginning January 1, 2006, retailers
will be required to throw out their
current sales tax collection schedule, which generally adds a penny
in tax
for every 16.67-cent increase in the sales price of an item. Instead,
retailers must compute the 6-percent sales tax on the actual sales price
and
"compute the tax to the third decimal place and round up to a whole
cent
when the third decimal place is greater than four, or down to a whole
cent
when the third decimal point is four or less."
Notice of the change, a result of
the national streamlined sales tax effort,
is at the Michigan Department of Treasury website link at
http://www.michigan.gov/treasury/0,1607,7-121----S,00.html.
KEY BILL INTRODUCTIONS:
No New Bill Introductions to Report at this Time
To view the content and current status of retail-related
bills, visit BillTrack,
MRA's legislative tracking database exclusively for members, at
www.retailbilltrack.com
If you are currently receiving Capitol F@cts by fax and
would like to receive
it via e-mail, please contact Kathleen Wilson at 517.372.5656 or
kawilson@retailers.com.
For back issues of online Capitol F@cts, visit MRA's main Capitol F@cts page.
Specific comments or questions regarding this bulletin
should be directed to:
Kathleen Wilson, Administrative Assistant to the Governmental Affairs
Office at
kawilson@retailers.com.
Michigan Retailers Association
603 South Washington Avenue
Lansing, MI 48933
517.372.5656
Toll-Free: 800.366.3699
Fax: 517.372.1303
govt_affairs@retailers.com
www.retailers.com
www.mallofmichigan.com
