The Legislature is poised to act quickly and positively to delay for two years a major increase in the unemployment compensation tax.

It's a move that could save beleaguered employers as much as a twelvefold increase on their unemployment tax bills.

The legislation zipped through both Senate and House committees. Its supporters claim it will stimulate job creation and allow businesses to stay afloat in a down economy.

The Senate and House bills -- SB 1666 and HB 7033 -- would roll back the base wage from $8,500 to $7,000. They would also save employers already paying the maximum unemployment tax rate from handing over an extra $80 per person.

“This is not perfect,” Randy Miller, executive vice president of the Florida Retail Federation, told the Senate Ways and Means Committee. “It’s simply asking for balance. We think that in two years, things are going to change.”

Some legislators and advocates say the bill only addresses half the problem with the state unemployment system. It would be better, they say, to go ahead as planned with the increase -- set to become effective in April -- and make a start at expanding and modernizing its outmoded system. Then, the state could qualify for as much as $444 million in federal stimulus money.

But, there's no time to waste discussing modernization versus delay, said Sen. Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and sponsor of the bill in his chamber. It’s important to move swiftly, he said, because the new tax bills are on employers’ desks right now.

If approved, the bills would postpone the state unemployment tax increase until 2012. They would also freeze the wage base at $7,000 for two years as well as allow employers to pay it in quarterly installments.

Both bills could clear their chambers as early as today, the first day of the new session. Gov. Charlie Crist has praised the House and Senate for supporting them.

The Legislature approved the looming hike in the unemployment tax last summer, with businesses’ support, to compensate for Florida’s depleted Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund. To replenish it, the state borrowed $1.1 billion from the federal UCTF.

And, the reason businesses are now complaining the hike is burdensome? Proponents of the bill felt at the time of passage that the state’s troubled economy would have peaked at 10 percent unemployment, said Tammy Perdue, general counsel of Associated Industries of Florida. They’ve since been proven wrong, with the unemployment rate at 11.8 percent in December.

If the tax hike is not suspended, small businesses will see an almost twelvefold rise in their payments between their 2009 and 2010 state unemployment tax bills. The minimum per person unemployment tax bill businesses will pay will rise from $8.40 to $100.30, the maximum from $378 to $459.

“I feel a little uncomfortable voting for something that delays the inevitable,” Senate Majority Whip Nancy Detert, R-Venice, told the Senate Commerce Committee. “But, we’re all hanging on by our fingertips.”

Perdue said a large South Florida company with a few thousand employees initially anticipated its unemployment tax bill would be $200,000. Later, it learned the bill will be closer to $1 million. “That’s $700,000 they could use to hire new people,” Perdue said.

Even if the Legislature approves the delay, however, many employers will still see higher bills because of "the experience rate" -- the formula the state uses to calculate tax rates, said Allen Douglas, state legislative affairs director for the National Federation of Independent Business.

The experience rating of a business rises with its number of unemployed, and employers with a high experience rating pay higher bills. (More on the experience rate can be found in the state unemployment compensation handbook.)

The economic turmoil of the past year forced businesses to lose staff, Douglas said. This means their experience rating rose.