Nikki Haley Pushes Regulatory and Tax Reform in Cabinet Session

Since taking office, Gov. Nikki Haley has made it abundantly clear that her first priority is creating jobs to lift the South Carolina economy.

Thousands more people are working now than when Haley took over in 2011, but in her State of the State address last month she said that more could be done to free up growth and hiring, particularly among small businesses.

One of those areas is in regulatory reform. At a meeting with her cabinet on Tuesday, Haley signed an executive order creating the Governor's Regulatory Review Task Force (attached to this story).

The group will hold public meetings with businesses throughout the state with the goal of identifying regulatory burdens and making recommendations to remove them. A report is due Nov. 15.

Haley's cabinet will issue a report to the Task Force by May 1 that provides information on regulatory burdens and what can be done to repeal or amend them.

A 2010 report from the NYU School of Law gave South Carolina a letter grade of "D" for its regulatory review process. "I won't be happy until that's an "A," Haley said.

Haley said, "There is no better way we can help businesses than to loosen regulatory burdens and we're asking our cabinet heads to look at their procedures and policies to make that happen."

Other states have eased regulations, Haley said, and that gives them a competitive advantage when pursuing businesses.

The governor also called for an elimination of the six percent income tax in her State of the State speech. The House of Representatives has proposed a bill that would address merge income tax rates, which Haley said she would consider. Haley did not rule out increasing the sales tax or instituting a consumption tax. "When you look at the states that don't have an income tax, they aren't having a problem with attracting jobs," Haley said.

There are nine states that currently do not have an income tax -- Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Their average unemployment rate as of December was 6.6 percent, from South Dakota's at 4.4 percent to Nevada's at 10.2 percent. South Carolina's is 8.4.

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