The Indiana Chamber of Commerce will focus efforts this legislative session on delaying an increased tax for funding unemployment benefits and fighting the drive to enshrine Indiana's unequal property tax caps in the state Constitution.

Delaying the tax increase businesses pay to support Indiana's unemployment insurance fund by two years would save businesses abut $500 million and allow them to create jobs, Indiana Chamber President Kevin Brinegar told business and community leaders at the Northwest Indiana Forum on Thursday.

The Chamber is fighting the effort to enshrine property tax caps in the state Constitution because as currently structured, property taxes on businesses will be capped at 3 percent of assessed value while those on homes will be capped at a lower threshold of 1 percent.

"The best solution to all this is the current Constitution, which says all property should be assessed and taxed uniformly and equally," Brinegar said.

Further complicating the picture is a bill introduced by State Rep. F. Dale Grubb, D-Covington, that would severely limit increases in the assessed value of homes and farms but would not impose any limits on increases on business properties, Brinegar said.

Gov. Mitch Daniels backs the move to put the property tax caps in the state Constitution, marking one of the few areas where the pro-business governor differs with the Chamber.

The issue is a complicated one for businesses.

Tom Keilman, of BP public affairs, told Brinegar the Whiting refinery at one time was taxed at about 8 percent of its assessed value, so 3 percent seems like a move toward something better.

"For those of us who are major investors in Lake County, it's a dilemma," Keilman said.

On the unemployment front, Indiana's fund for paying out jobless benefits has been running deficits for years, and the state is now borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to keep it solvent.

The total amount owed to the federal government will swell to $3 billion by 2012, even if the tax increase does not go into effect as scheduled on Jan. 1, Brinegar said.

Although unemployment taxes and property taxes may top the Chamber's priority list, the Indiana business champion is also at work on a long laundry list of local, state and federal issues Brinegar said.

One issue that tops the hot-button category for the Chamber is the popularly dubbed "take-your-guns-to-work law," which has already passed the Indiana Senate by a vote of 42-8, Brinegar said. He said the Chamber receives more calls from alarmed businesses on that issue than just about any other.

The law would basically prevent employers from having policies that forbid guns on their property.

"We believe the property rights of employers should trump the Second Amendment rights of employees," Brinegar said.