01/24/1977 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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tax. He said the bank was willing to pay its fair share, but did not 4It want to pay more than its competitors would be paying. He felt that instead of using growth deposits, it would be more fair to use net deposits and made reference to the fact that because of demand deposits banks have to keep a higher rate, whereas savings and loan associations are not required to do so. He felt that the rate should be the same for both types of institutions. Frank E. Brawner, 810 22nd NW, Salem, Executive Vice President of the . Oregon Banking Association, indicated that his group endorsed the proposed amendments with some reservations. He said the group wanted to pay its fair share and that they had worked with the Legislature to change the laws for levying local taxes on banking institutions, but the group felt that all financial institutions should be treated fairly and taxed in the same manner. He questioned whether foot traffic survey would show that much discrepancy and whether this was a suitable mode for determining a tax rate anyway. He urged an amendment to the ordinance to treat each institution on an equal basis. Richard L. Biggs, 2908 First National Tower, Portland, an attorney speaking on behalf of seven consumer finance companies in the Mall area, asked for a postponement on action for the amendment to the ordinance, saying that the notices sent to the branch offices and the letters telling of the public hearing got lost and so the time for response and prepara- tion for the case was not adequate. He also indicated that the projected yield of the tax was far in excess of the goal as he understood it. He said the burden of this tax is uniquely high, and that these consumer finance associations are strictly regulated industries and that there is no way that they could pass a tax onto the customers, that the tax appears to be too high for the traffic generated by these offices. He said that in metropolitan offices customers do not come into the offices to pay", but rather pay by mail and that under the proposed tax ordinance these consumer financial institutions would be paying approximately one dollar for each time a customer would come into its office. He cautioned the Council that there is a trend in the consumer financing industry in the realization that they do not need to be in a downtown area with a tendency to move out of the downtown area, citing there are 22 such institutions in Eugene, but only seven located in the mall area. He said the consumer finance companies feel they should pay their fair share, but the proposed rate in this ordinance is far in excess of their fair share, and he would ask for a postponement of Council action on this amendment until further information could be gathered. e Public hearing was closed with no further testimony being presented. Councilman Bradley questioned staff as to the differences in the rate between the banks and savings and loan associations. Mr. Flogstad answered that the rates were developed and formulated with informa- tion as to how each business kept its records. The differences were used to establish the rate based on how the records were kept and that they were completely different in each case. He said that since ~ 1/24/77 - 14 50