Union, Political Activists Criticize GE In Protest

HARTFORD — “GE! Pay your taxes!” The chants of about 45 union and political activists echoed inside the Connecticut Business and Industry Association lobby Thursday.

The group, organized by the Working Families Party and major unions in the state, was delivering a letter to CBIA, the largest business lobby in the state, protesting a threat by Fairfield-based General Electric to leave the state after the legislature passed a budget that would increase GE’s corporate income tax liability.

“GE is shortchanging the state and it’s leaving the rest of us to pay the difference,” said Taylor Leake, spokesman for the Working Families Party.

The letter says: “GE has been paying no corporate income taxes to the state of Connecticut. None.”

The company, the biggest corporation headquartered in Connecticut, declines to say how much it paid last year in state income taxes, and the figure is not broken out in corporate filings.

GE spokesman Seth Martin said Thursday, “GE pays taxes in Connecticut and everywhere we do business.” He did not say whether those taxes included corporate income taxes.

Martin also noted that between the money spent with Connecticut suppliers and on salaries, “our economic and social impact in the state is very significant.”

Paul Filson, director of the Service Employees International State Council, acknowledged the coalition doesn’t know if GE is paying nothing. “Nobody knows for sure,” he said. But he said that with the company’s reputation for aggressive tax avoidance, “it’s a fair assumption.”

Tom Swan, executive director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, said he was calling out CBIA and GE “for their dishonest approach to the state budget.”

The letter questioned why GE waited until the last week of the legislative session to complain about tax changes when some had been proposed in February, and others in April.

Martin said the company did not wait until the end of session to complain, just waited until then to make its concerns public.

Swan criticized CBIA President Joe Brennan’s comment in The Courant that he would advocate to stop the $159 million tax transfer to municipalities next year. The transfer is being done in the hope it will slow growth in property taxes.

“So, in order to protect GE’s ability to hide their profits, CBIA’s going to screw the rest of their members,” he said.

CBIA General Counsel Bonnie Stewart, who thanked the protesters for their letter, defended the association’s position in a later interview. “We do not believe the state is in a position to do actual property tax reform,” she said, though the organization still hopes to work toward sustainable property tax reform.

Stewart said the protesters were trying to narrow the debate on business push-back on tax increases to one company. She said she believes the protesters’ stance is a minority view.

“We are not only hearing from one company. We’ve heard from hundreds of companies, large and small,” she said.