Rep. Bryan Stevenson (R-Webb City) received the Associated Industries of Missouri’s (AIM) Voice of Missouri Business award on April 12.

Stevenson received the award for his focus on industry and bringing more and better jobs to the state.

“It means a lot to me,” Stevenson said. “This is the first time I have received this award and I’m very proud.”

He said he isn’t as influential and high-ranking as past representatives who have won the award.

“For someone who is not as high profile I think it speaks about his efforts in the business community and all of the things he’s trying to do for them,” said Rep. Allen Icet (R-Wildwood). I think you can say he has gone a little above and beyond in order to be recognized.

“I think it does reflect very positively on Rep. Stevenson and his efforts as a legislator. He is an outstanding member of the legislature and the folks in Jasper County should be proud of having him serve as their legislator.”

Icet is currently the chair of the Budget Committee, and past recipient of the Associated Industries award.

Stevenson said the reason he received the award was for his actions as the chair of the Tax Reform Committee.

He has filed two bills that will hopefully bring more jobs to the state.

One would eliminate corporate franchise tax and the other will phase out corporate income tax over the next five years.

“Currently, corporate income tax only provides about 3 percent of the local state tax revenue. So we’re not talking about a very big loss by eliminating it,” Stevenson said. “The corporate income tax that we would lose would be more than offset by new businesses attracted to the state.

“By attracting more businesses to the state we have more jobs, more income tax, more sales tax and more property tax.

So it would have a net benefit to the state in that it would increase state collections but more importantly it would benefit the state because there will be more jobs, better jobs, more employment and more economic activity in the state.”

But just because he won an award doesn’t mean Stevenson will stop working to bring more jobs to the state.

He is currently working on a bill that would give a variety of incentives to distribution centers and data storage facilities for moving to the state.

“If businesses from neighboring states are going to be looking to move we would like for them to come to Missouri where they will employ Missouri employees,” Stevenson said.