State Spotlight: S.C. Lawmaker Aims to Ease Tax Burden

The 2014 elections are still nine months away, but Bakari T. Sellers already is distancing himself from the president and his controversial healthcare law.

The Democratic state representative in South Carolina has co-sponsored a bill with Republican State Rep. G. Murrell Smith Jr. that would “lessen the burden” of the medical device tax on state businesses. Introduced on Jan. 14, the legislation currently is before the South Carolina House Ways and Means Committee. 

Sellers and Smith’s bill would provide a tax credit to Palmetto State companies developing or manufacturing medical devices, essentially reimbursing them for the tax—a vital source of funding for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. 

“The federal government has created far too many impediments for businesses to grow and prosper,” Sellers said in a statement announcing the legislation. “It is time to lessen the regulatory burden on companies, not increase it.”

The Affordable Care Act imposed a new 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device manufacturers. The levy took effect last year.
Sellers and Smith’s bill stipulates the fees must accompany applications for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of medical devices. In addition, the legislation would allow “unused such credits to be transferred and used by others in exchange for specified minimum amounts of private financial assistance paid to the transferring company for its use in developing its business.”

When asked by CNN whether he supports the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, Sellers first chuckled and said, “That’s a loaded question.” But the lieutenant governor candidate admitted he agreed with certain aspects of the legislation, particularly its effort to expand access to health insurance and cover people with pre-existing conditions. 

“On the whole, I can tell you there are certain aspects of Obamacare which give me trepidation, and I can’t tell you everything that’s in it, because I’m not certain anyone can, outside of Kathleen Sebelius or someone at HHS,” he told CNN. “But I think the medical device tax is a burden, and if we do something like this, it can give us an economic edge.”

The South Carolina Biotech Industry Organization supports the legislation; the group’s president claims the tax is “killing jobs and the ability to innovate.  You do not have to be against the Affordable Care Act to see that this one provision needs fixing,” he said.
State Republican Party chairman Matt Moore dismissed Sellers’ bill as a “classic political ploy.” Sellers, Moore said, is “pandering and running from the president.”

But Republican Gov. Nikki Haley’s re-election campaign seized on Sellers’ bill as an example of Democrats admitting “Obamacare is squeezing South Carolina businesses.” She called on state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, the likely Democratic nominee for governor, to admit the same.

“It is my hope that by creating this kind of ‘pro-economic development’ and ‘anti-regulatory’ environment, South Carolina can attract more manufacturing companies which in turn will bring in good high-paying jobs,” Sellers said.

The 29-year-old attorney was a leading member of Obama’s campaign during the 2008 South Carolina primary fight.