Fair Share Tax

What to know

• 400 Mega Corporations pay more, 18,000 small businesses get tax relief
• Will shrink Portland's looming budget deficit by lowering tax rates on small business while increasing an existing surcharge tax on ultrawealthy corporations.

Sign Up to Testify

Your voice will make the difference! You can testify on the Fair Share Tax at the Committee of the Whole meeting on Thursday, October 8th at 9:30 am.

Both in person and virtual testimony are welcome (written is also available), we hope to see you there.

Register for testimony or submit written testimony to Council

Testimony Tips

• Begin by addressing the committee and sharing your name and district
• Share your support for the legislation, ex: "I support the Fair Share Tax, which will help exempt 18,000 small businesses from paying the Business License Tax. It will also increase the existing CEO tax for ultra-rich publicly traded corporations that pay their CEO's 50 times or more their median worker. This can make a big difference for a small and new business, as well as maintaining services that Portlanders rely on."
• Share your personal story and impact of how this would help your community, businesses, or the City services you rely on (parks, public safety, summer free for all, housing).
• Close by re-iterating your support for the Fair Share Tax

The Problem

As the private fortunes of the top 1% soar to unheard-of levels, more than half of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Meanwhile, new business openings are down and excessive profits and pay packages for megacorporation executives are way up. Since 1978, startups as a percentage of Portland-area businesses has fallen by nearly half. Over that same period, CEO pay at the largest U.S. corporations exploded by 1,094%, while a typical worker's pay grew only 26%.

Trumps tax cuts slashed corporate taxes by nearly 50% and instead of passing savings onto working families as they promised, corporations instead enriched shareholders with tens of billions of dollars, laid off thousands of workers, and increased the prices of consumer goods. The system has been rigged against the working class. It's time to start having mega corporations pay their fair share. 

The Solution: The Fair Share Tax 

The package will simultaneously raise an existing surtax on ultrawealthy corporations while also cutting taxes for small businesses, shrinking Portland's looming budget deficits and protecting the essential public services that Portlanders rely on every single day.

Cut taxes for small businesses 

The Fair Share Tax Ordinance cuts small business taxes by raising the Business License Tax (BLT) exemption from $75,000 in sales today ($100,000 next year) to $500,000. This will mean that about 18,000 small businesses will pay nothing. Affected businesses will see an average savings of around $900.  

Make mega corporations with the largest CEO-to-worker pay gaps pay more

Since 2016, publicly traded companies that pay their CEO 50 times their median worker or more have paid a surtax on their Portland business tax. Our ordinance will increase this so that publicly traded companies falling in the 50:1 to 75:1 bracket would pay surtax of 25%, an effective tax on income of 3.25%; and those with pay ratios equal to or greater than 500:1 would pay a 500% surtax, effectively 15.6% on net income.

Note: "Mega Corporation" can cut its city tax bill by more than 80% simply by raising worker pay or bringing CEO pay back toward norms in the 1970s (roughly 30 to 1 ratio).

What this means for Portland's budget

A projected $72 million a year in new revenue. The surtax raises roughly $88 million in new revenue and the tax cut for small businesses costs about $16 million. The City faced a shortfall of $93 million in fiscal year 2025-26 and $160 million in FY 2026-27.

In this most recent shortfall, the Mayor proposed cuts to Public Safety and Parks General Fund allocations totaling $49 million.

In the U.S.A.

Since 2017, publicly traded companies that pay their CEO 100 times their median worker or more have paid a surtax on their Portland business tax. With its current rates, the surtax brings in about $7 million per year for the City based on FY 2024 collections. Some councilors have publicly contemplated raising this surtax to address the budget deficit, but it has not been formally proposed to be updated until now.

In 2020, San Francisco followed Portland's lead and adopted a similar tax, the Overpaid Executive Tax, which has generated $100 million annually.

Last year, Senator Sanders and Representative Tlaib introduced the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, proposing to raise taxes on corporations with CEO-to-worker pay ratios greater than 50 to 1. For more information, see Resource Guide at inequality.org.

F.A.Q.

Concerned that this could drive businesses out or leverage higher prices for consumers? Not only are these myths, but we've assembled a comprehensive F.A.Q. to address any questions you may have regarding the Fair Share Tax.

Fair Share Tax