By Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut lost 3,500 jobs in November as the state’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.6 percent, the Department of Labor reported today.

Connecticut, which had a 4.5 percent jobless rate one month earlier, has grown 5,000 jobs over the past 12 months.

“Job growth in 2017 has slowed significantly since peaking in the second quarter,” said Andy Condon, director of the labor department’s Office of Research. Private-sector employment declined by 3,300 jobs in November but remains up 2,800 positions for the year.

Seven of the state’s 10 industry super-sectors lost jobs in November, topped by leisure and hospitality, which declined by 2,000 positions. Losses also were recorded in: professional and business services; construction and mining; trade, transportation and utilities; government; manufacturing; and retail.

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Most Americans wouldn’t feel the effects of proposed federal tax changes until the spring of 2019. But it could throw a big wrench into Connecticut’s state budget right in the coming weeks.

Taxpayers here could maximize federal tax relief down the road by stepping up state and local tax payments now.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration fears this could mask a dangerous downward trend in state tax receipts — only for a few months — and weaken legislators’ will to close a serious state budget deficit until it is too late.

“There’s nothing about these (federal) tax changes that are going to turn things around for us in the next 18 months,” Malloy’s budget director, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes, told The Mirror on Friday.

By Ana Radelat

As a historic overhaul of the nation’s tax code nears the finish line, Connecticut taxpayers have deluged their accountants with questions over its impact on their households or businesses.

“As a tax practitioner I’m kind of excited to see this happen, but at the same point there’s a lot of anxiety out there as well,” said Andrew Lattimer, a certified public accountant and tax specialist at the West Hartford office of BlumShapiro.

There hasn’t been such an ambitious attempt to change the federal tax system since 1986, when former President Ronald Reagan cut taxes to promote corporate growth and shrink the size of government. That “supply side” economic theory resulted in huge deficits.

Reaganomics has been revived in the new tax plan. It’s GOP authors (no Democrat on Capitol Hill supports the plan) say cutting corporate taxes will stimulate growth and bring back jobs that were lost as American companies decided they would pay lower taxes if they located their business overseas.

By Keith M. Phaneuf and Jake Kara

www.ctmirror.org

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today released an array of options to rebalance the state budget that include raising the sales tax rate as high as 6.9 percent, boosting other taxes, cutting municipal aid by $50 million and reducing health care, social services, and other programs.

These budget-balancing options, collectively, would boost revenue and reduce spending by more than $302 million this fiscal year — more than enough to counter the $208 million deficit projected for the current fiscal year.

They also could — depending on which ideas lawmakers might accept — position Connecticut to begin to rebuild its depleted emergency budget reserve starting next fiscal year.

But given that legislative leaders have expressed reluctance to make any adjustments to the new budget they crafted beyond reversing cuts to the Medicare Savings Program, it was unclear whether any of Malloy’s deficit-mitigation options had much of a future.

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About 70 percent of Westport homeowners would pay more federal taxes if a $10,000 limit is imposed on deduction of local property taxes, according to figures released today by Tax Assessor Paul Friia.

He said Westport currently has 9,430 taxable single-family residential properties, and 2,897 of them, or 30.72 percent, pay $10,000 or less in property taxes. That leaves slightly fewer than 70 percent of single-family homeowners who pay more than $10,000 annually in property taxes.

If all taxable properties are included, the total is 10,321, and those paying $10,000 or less would be 28.06 percent, Friia said.

State Department of Revenue Services Commissioner Kevin B. Sullivan has said that capping deductibility of the property tax would increase federal taxes “for a significant proportion of Connecticut taxpayers who claim $4.9 billion” of tax relief through this break.