June 9, 2009

Statement of Chet Jorgenson,
 Statewide President of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees,
On the Minnesota Public Radio Story,
“State pursuing more tax scofflaws”
June 9, 2009

            “I want to thank Governor Pawlenty and his administration for taking our budget cutting suggestions to heart, one of which was to aggressively pursue uncollected money owed by delinquent personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, withholding and sales tax.  But the MPR story just scratched the surface on the good work by Revenue employees.

It was MAPE members working at Revenue who spearheaded this drive and the idea to publicly list the names of 125 businesses who owe unpaid sales tax.  It is MAPE members who are going out to audit small businesses, individuals and corporations to make sure they are following the law.  MAPE members are committed to finding ways to make government work more efficiently and effectively.

 Thank you also to Terri Steenblock, who highlighted the real value our employees bring to the state when she cited that her staff brings in between $5 and $11 for every dollar spent on their salaries and expenses – it shows that public employees bring real value to our state.      

            Our hope is that the $472 million mentioned as the total collection for the biennium can be used to help some of the 30,000 people Governor Pawlenty wants to eliminate from the General Assistance Medical Care program.  Our union believes that the money we help collect should be used to help our fellow Minnesotans.”

 

Here's the link to the MPR article:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/06/08/delinquent_taxes