Legislative Wrap Up

The Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce was pleased to be the VOICE of business during the NC General Assembly short session. The conclusion of the session in July saw many victories for business in the state and Western North Carolina.

A top priority of the Asheville Chamber has been the cultivation of a regional partnership to provide greater impact to the WNC business voice. This goal was achieved this year as the Asheville Chamber partnered with five other regional chambers to take over 50 business leaders to Jones Street. The regional chambers included were the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, Black Mountain/Swannanoa Chamber, Haywood County Chamber, Henderson County Chamber, Madison County Chamber, and Brevard/Transylvania Chamber. The trip was a great success and plans are already in the works for next year.

Throughout the course of the short session, the Asheville Chamber was especially pleased to work on and see success with the Eastern Band of Cherokee’s Gambling Compact. This piece of legislation is key to WNC economic development as it will be responsible for 400 new and needed jobs in the region.

The session also saw steps in the right direction with regulatory reform and the removal of duplications in state and federal regulations. Work was also done with education reform with improvements to the lateral entry process. The Chamber believes this will allow business leaders easier access to the classroom. The Chamber was also pleased to see the state budget include initiatives to strengthen the NC Community College System and our state’s workforce development efforts, such as investing $5 million for an NC Back-to-Work Program focused on providing short-term training to the long-term unemployed.

Finally, the Chamber was thankful for work to remove contingency fee audits. Many local government units use third-party auditors for personal property tax purposes and are increasingly engaging these auditors on a contingency fee basis. This is of particular concern to North Carolina businesses because these commission-based fees potentially incentivize the third-party auditor to arbitrarily inflate a taxpayer’s liability since a larger audit assessment results in a larger payment to the auditor. The Chamber thanks the Governor for signing in H462, which will work to stop these unfair contingency fee audits.

Work has already begun to begin preparing for the next years long session. Please stay tuned and keep a look out for the Chamber’s Legislative Priorities Survey. This tool is a great way to identify member’s top priorities for the next year.

Please see below for additional bill tracking.

Regulatory Reform

Bill Number	Description	Tracking
H952	State Air Toxics Program Reforms	Ratified; Signed by the Governor
S810	Regulatory Reform Act of 2012	Ratified
H005	Local Deannexations	Ratified
H925	Annexation Reform 2	Ratified
H462	Contingency Contracts for Audits/ Assessments	Ratified

Taxes

Bill Number	Description	Tracking
H1025	Extend Tax Credit Provisions	Ratified; Signed by Governor
H1015	Economic Development/Finance Changes	Ratified; Signed by Governor

Transportation

Bill Number	Description	Tracking
H142	Caps State Gas Tax at 37.5 Cents	Passed House; In Senate Rules

Education

Bill Number	Description	Tracking
S795	Excellent Public Schools Act	Passed Senate; In House Education (Provisions passed in budget)

Job Creation

Bill Number	Description	Tracking
H116	Small Business Jobs Credit	House Commerce
H1117	Enhance R&D Tax Credit for Small Business	House Commerce
H1118	Small Business Start-Up Tax Relief	House Commerce
S582	Authorize Indian Gaming Revenue	Ratified; Signed by Governor