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RESOLUTION NO. 2013-08 PAGE 2 WHEREAS, municipalities in Ohio, with the support of the Ohio Municipal League, have supported and participated in discussions of uniformity for the past thirteen years, and worked to achieve uniformity in many areas of municipal income tax; and WHEREAS, each time that uniformity was challenged by a Special Interest group, carve-outs or changes to benefit Special Interests have been put in place by the Ohio General Assembly; and WHEREAS, municipalities have been responsive in the past to efforts to streamline the rules and regulations and create uniformity in the overwhelming majority of local tax codes creating a streamlined process for all taxpayers; and WHEREAS, only municipalities can and will provide the personal service and assistance to its taxpayers in the preparation and filing of their tax reports and returns; and WHEREAS, only municipalities can ensure the prompt and proper auditing of local tax returns to ensure all applicable deductions and declarations are reported, thus also ensuring that a11 taxpayers pay their fair share without causing higher costs of compliance for all, and must be able to do so without burdensome and costly restrictions included in HB 5 created with the only purpose of restricting municipalities from correcting / auditing returns or making assessments; and WHEREAS, only municipalities can and will aggressively pursue those non-compliant and delinquent taxpayers who, by their omission or deliberate deceit, drive up the costs of compliance to all; and WHEREAS, provisions in this bill hamper every municipality's ability to audit and correct municipal income tax returns, to equitably enforce the municipal income tax laws, creates increased cost of administration due to burdensome notification requirements, reduces revenue due to "unfunded mandates" and elimination of compliance processes, and has been crafted as a vehicle to control the administrative process of municipal income tax to the benefit of specific taxpayer interests; and WHEREAS, municipalities must fight to protect their single largest revenue source, which provides essential municipal services, promoting a positive quality of life that residents and businesses alike rely upon, and any forced reduction in this revenue will have a negative impact on residents and businesses, creating an environment detrimental to retaining and attracting business in Ohio; and WHEREAS, State politicians have already systematically placed ever-increasing tax burdens on cities with the massive depletion of the local government fund, the abolishment of the estate tax, and the expedited phase-out of tangible personal properly tax reimbursements.