Projo Biz Blog

Sen. Leonidas P. Raptakis, D-Coventry, said today that he would fight any effort to raise taxes on Rhode Island businesses.

The Providence Journal reported last week that state Sen. Stephen D. Alves, chairman of the Finance Committee, spoke in favor of possible tax increases on businesses at a speech at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce’s high-profile legislative luncheon.

“I think we have been fair to the business community,” Alves, D-West Warwick, said at the time. “The pain should be shared equally.”

Journal writer Neil Downing discussed that possibility in a column on Sunday. Lawmakers are grappling with a projected $450-million deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Yesterday, Raptakis, owner of Venus Pizza, on Nooseneck Hill Road in Coventry, said he would fight any tax hikes.

“I am disappointed that any state official would seek to target businesses with a broad brush and suggest that they are not paying their fair share of taxes,” Raptakis said in a statement today. “At a time when the state seems to be willing to hand out tax breaks to developers promising to build water parks and movie studios, it seems unfair to be targeting existing businesses in the state which haven’t come looking for handouts and have been paying more than their fair share of taxes.”

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