What Young Professionals Should Expect At the Capitol

The new year will bring a new session of the Arizona Legislature, and while you may think the decisions made during the session don’t impact you, they can have a big impact on your life and career. VYP Board member Jason Barraza of Veridus LLC looks at a few of the key issues you’ll read and hear about in 2012, and why they’re important to young professionals.

As an expanding and dynamic demographic in the Phoenix landscape, it is increasingly important for the Valley’s Young Professionals to stay updated as to the happenings in Arizona politics.  To this point, as 2012 nears and another round of legislation approaches, the political drums are beginning to sound.

The 2012 State Legislative Session will convene on January 9th, 2012.  The initial word is this year’s legislative session will likely conclude within the 100 day benchmark (sessions from previous years have extended well beyond this timeframe), yet many important issues will be taken up by our elected officials. As in previous years, the State’s budget will be heavily debated and will provide the backdrop to bills promoting job creation, tort reform, education reform and tax reform.  Additionally, the new State Agency Fee Commission, formed with the support of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, begins the process of reviewing state agency fees.

Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce members should be looking for legislation that addresses various tax related issues. For example, we will see a constitutional amendment that would refer to the 2012 general election ballot a limit to the annual increase in property valuations to no more than five percent. We will also see a bill that extends the limit on net operating loss carry forwards from five years to 20 years. This bill would allow losses after 12/31/2011 to be spread over a period of 20 years for tax reporting purposes.

Health care will also be a topic of discussion during this legislative session. While the state continues to move forward with the planning and implementation of a statewide health insurance exchange (per federal health insurance reform legislation), the U.S. Supreme Court has issued a briefing schedule encompassing the first quarter of 2012 for those states suing to stop this federal legislation from taking effect.

Finally, the Legislature may attempt to restructure Arizona’s redistricting process and initiative campaigns will likely begin to surface seeking to utilize and extend the temporary one-cent sales tax passed by Proposition 100 in 2010.

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This story is part of the Chamber's monthly Valley Young Professionals email. To sign up for any or all of the Chamber's email communications, click here.