Many tax breaks or exemptions for local businesses would be preserved under a tentative compromise bill set to move today at the Legislature.

Last night a revision to Senate Bill 2402 was offered that cut the exemptions to $25 million from a projected $112 million.

The House-Senate conference committee did not have a quorum, or enough members in attendance to vote on it, last night, but it is expected to be reviewed this morning.

The bill spares exemptions for condominium maintenance fees, ship repair and aircraft maintenance.

Also taken out of the bill were new taxes that would have been levied on high technology development grants, hotel employee management firms and property owned by labor unions.

The series of 37 tax exemption repeals had been proposed by the House as a way to raise new money for the state without increasing the general excise tax.

Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, Ways and Means Committee chairwoman, said the Senate had been opposed to the large number of exemption repeals because it would hurt many local businesses.

“;This is an improvement,”; Kim said.

Businesses that lose their exemption would face an excise tax of half a percent. The tax would be imposed only until 2015, according to the proposal.

The Legislature held a rare Sunday night conference committee meeting because it is rushing to put all the controversial tax bills in place for a final vote this week. The timing is crucial because it would force Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the measures she dislikes now.

That would then allow the Legislature to override Lingle's vetoes without coming back into session this summer for a special veto-override session, something lawmakers try not to do during an election year. If lawmakers wait until the end of the month to pass the bills, Lingle, according to the state Constitution, would have 45 days to veto the bills.

Legislators feel confident that Lingle will not veto plans to take much of the hotel room tax proceeds now given to the counties, because she had also proposed a hotel tax raid on her own.

But the counties are worried.

Yesterday, Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann and Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho watched as the House-Senate conference committee negotiated on a bill to take the hotel room tax from the counties.

The state Legislature and Lingle are eying the more than $94 million a year that the counties get from the state's hotel room tax.

The counties, however, say that without the hotel tax money, they would be forced to raise property taxes or drastically cut services.

The House plan would cap the counties' share at the existing $94 million, but the Senate wants to lower the county portion to only $50 million. Carvalho said after the meeting that any cut in hotel room tax assistance would likely mean a property tax increase for Kauai property owners.

Hannemann said he was not sure what the City Council would do if it did not have the hotel tax funds.

The committee is expected to return to the bargaining table at 10 this morning.