Obama’s Corporate Framework May Create Double Tax, Camp Says

President Barack Obama’s suggestion that businesses reporting income on individual returns could be taxed more like corporations amounts to a “double tax,” House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp said. Camp, a Michigan Republican, made the comments today at a committee hearing in Washington that focused on how closely held businesses should be treated in a U.S. tax code overhaul. These firms pass through their income to the owner’s individual tax return, allowing them to pay taxes on that income at the individual rate instead of the corporate rate. In Obama’s proposed corporate tax revisions, which the administration released on Feb. 22, he said large companies are “increasingly avoiding corporate tax liability by organizing themselves as pass-through businesses.” Republicans maintain that such businesses are often small and should be protected. The tax treatment of these businesses will be an important element of any tax code overhaul in Congress.

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Dow's new direction

When Mr. McGuire told Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin in The Graduate that "I just want to say one word to you," and that word was "plastics," he could have been recommending a career at Dow Chemical. It was advice that Andrew Liveris, a new chemical-engineering graduate from Darwin, Australia, followed in 1976, when he joined Dow (DOW). The company produced mainly petrochemicals and the plastics created from them, and it was a good business. But by the time Liveris became Dow's CEO in 2004, that commodity chemical strategy no longer made sense. That's why Liveris, 57, has been turning Dow in a new direction, focusing on unique, innovative, high-margin products, such as recently introduced solar shingles. Dow makes them in Michigan, underscoring another of Liveris's major themes, the importance of U.S. manufacturing.

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Michigan State's Andrew Maxwell adjusting to life as Spartans' quarterback

Andrew Maxwell took the perspective of the ball when writing the 2008-09 Midland High School basketball preview for the student newspaper. "We had a young team," Maxwell explained. "So I was like, 'I'm going to have a lot of new hands on me this year. They're going to have to be careful, because if you don't take care of me, it's going the other way for a dunk.'" The article won a statewide award (though the Midland basketball team was less successful). Three years later, Michigan State's next starting quarterback might want to consider taking a similar approach in his own journal (not that he keeps one).

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Fire at Northeast Middle School contained, classes cancelled

A fire at Northeast Middle School, 1305 E. Sugnet, that started around 6 a.m. has been contained. Smoke was coming from the building when the fire department arrived at the scene. Fire crews extinguished the flames about an hour after the blaze started. Investigators said the fire started in one of the classrooms. Wednesday classes for Northeast Middle School are canceled.

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Bill Schuette to appeal overturn of law sponsored by Rep. John Moolenaar of Midland allowing qualified contractors to bid on public contracts

Attorney General Bill Schuette and Senator John Moolenaar (R-Midland) announced today that the State of Michigan will appeal a ruling by a federal court that overturned the Michigan Fair and Open Competition and in Governmental Construction Act. Schuette said the law, signed by Gov. Rick Snyder on July 19, 2011, increases competition and lowers costs to taxpayers by allowing all contractors, regardless of union or non-union affiliation, to have equal access to competitively bid for public construction project contracts.

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Mount Pleasant man, Daily News employee, arraigned

via Midland Daily News

Midland Daily News weekend editor Ian Patrick Gray, 42, was arraigned this afternoon on four counts of criminal sexual conduct involving a minor. Gray, who lives in Mount Pleasant, was arrested Saturday evening at the Daily News office and is currently in custody at the Isabella County Jail. At the arraignment, Isabella County Judge William Rush formally read Gray the charges filed against him by the Isabella County Prosecutor’s Office: One count each of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor under the age of 13, second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor under the age of 13, third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor between the ages of 13 and 15, and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a minor between the ages of 13 and 16. Charging documents state the offenses occurred from 2009 to November 2011.

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Dioxin documents: Take a look at Dow Chemical's 2012 Midland cleanup schedule, Q&A

Take a look at documents Dow Chemical Co. handed out at a March 1 community information meeting regarding the company's plans to clean up property in Midland. The Midland-based company will test 1,450 Midland properties for dioxin contamination this summer. About 400 people attended the meeting in Midland, where Dow and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials were on hand to explain the process and answer questions. Members of the audience were concerned about the health effects from the toxic chemical byproduct.

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