PROVIDENCE — Governor Carcieri’s administration director, Gary Sasse, gave a roomful of state senators a list of “two to three things” to do over the next few months as the state tries to climb out of its financial abyss. The first was: “pray.”

The next was: “Need positive attitude. No naysayers,” according to the notes kept by one of the senators at the meeting last week.

The third was a variation on a key piece of an ambitious proposal to solve deficit-wracked California’s budget crisis: lower the tax burden on the wealthy, repeal sales taxes and replace the corporate profits tax with a new levy pegged to business revenues.

In the notes he took of this loosely organized meeting of senators, local officials and community activists, Sen. James Sheehan, D-North Kingstown, wrote: “Tax structure reform … 2 percent gross receipts tax … applies to services … Ohio uses it … Can eliminate other taxes … Proposed by Democrats in California … New thinking: Tinkering does not get us there!”

Sasse has not responded to inquiries in the week since the meeting, and Carcieri press secretary Amy Kempe sought to downplay the significance of his remarks, suggesting they were simply an acknowledgement of what other states are doing.

But when the governor was asked during an impromptu press conference Tuesday where he stood on the notion of a new 2-percent gross receipts tax to pave the way for the possible reduction or phase out of other taxes, he said: “We are looking at all of those different things … I am determined that we need to get a coalition together to change the tax policy of this state to make us more competitive, and that’s what my goal is.”

Taken alone, the notion is not new. But the debate in California is drawing renewed attention to it.

According to information compiled by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, a business-backed research group, most states, including Rhode Island, have corporate income taxes that are levied against profits, defined as gross receipts minus expenses. Gross receipts taxes apply to all business revenues with few or no deductions. All transactions are taxed, including business-to-business purchases of supplies, raw materials and equipment.

Several states already have some kind of gross receipts tax. Some have been able to make do without an income or sales tax. They include Delaware, which has no general retail sales tax; Texas, which has no income tax; and New Hampshire, which has no wage or general retail sales tax, according to the Tax Foundation.

Rhode Island has already taken a very small step by taxing public utilities (telecommunications, electric, gas) on their gross earnings; insurance companies on their gross premiums; and certain health-care providers on their gross revenues.

Last spring, the Governor’s Tax Policy Strategy Workgroup looked at the potential gain to Rhode Island of extending the tax across the business spectrum, and concluded — based on an earlier report by Ernst and Young — that “a 1.0% gross receipts tax with a $600,000 exemption would raise approximately $511.0 million in Rhode Island.”

A 2-percent gross receipts tax might raise $1 billion annually, enough for the state to eliminate other taxes that some say contribute to Rhode Island’s image as an expensive place to live and do business, including the 7-percent sales tax, which is expected to raise $823 million this year; the 9-percent corporate income tax, generating $112 million; or even the income tax, the anticipated source of $970 million.

As the governor’s tax policy group noted, however, the proposal has pros and cons.

“Two of the advantages of a gross receipts tax are the ease of administration and the consistency of revenue generated from the tax. The disadvantages, however, seem to outweigh the advantages,” the group said. “With a gross receipts tax, companies that are unprofitable still are required to pay a tax. There is also a pyramiding effect … [that] would mean a potentially costly tax increase for many companies.”

But the proposal unveiled recently by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tax commission –– a 4-percent tax on receipts of all businesses, including service professionals such as lawyers, accountants and engineers –– has drawn attention to the potential upside. The new tax would replace California’s corporate income tax and the state sales tax, and fund a sizable reduction in top personal income tax rates.

Carcieri told business and political elite at a RIPEC dinner last week that Rhode Island also needs what he called a “game changer” on its tax system, to make the state more competitive.

At the time, Kempe, his spokeswoman, said that would probably include a renewed drive to phase out the state’s corporate income tax as well as other elements of the “tax-reform” package he proposed last winter, which have so far generated little support from lawmakers.

Asked again Tuesday what kind of game-changers he was considering, Carcieri said: “I don’t want to get ahead of it right now… [But] what I’ve said consistently is that we need to be seen as pro-business…We need to grow jobs…We’ve got to get ourself in a much more competitive position and I think we’ve got to do that by shifting around our tax structure…We are looking at all kinds of possibilities.”

One of those in the room for last week’s meeting with the senators was the state General Treasurer Frank Caprio, who said the concept “sounded like something the administration has given some thought to … what I remember him [Sasse] saying is: this type of change could potentially reduce or eliminate the sales tax and bring down other tax rates, but it didn’t appear to be a full-blown plan yet.”

Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, said a receipts tax, coupled with reductions in sales and corporate income taxes, “would constitute a dramatic and very complex shift in our tax structure.”

Knowing the idea is garnering attention, she said the chamber’s tax committee will immediately begin studying its positive and negative effect on businesses, “particularly entrepreneurs and the emerging knowledge-economy industries.”

At this point, the proposal has one potential fan: Sen. Leonidas Raptakis, the Coventry Democrat who organized the small working-group of senators, town officials and leaders of the advocacy group known as the Statewide Coalition that met with Sasse and Caprio last week.

The Venus Pizza Restaurant owner said he could easily be won over if it would mean “we don’t have a sales tax in Rhode Island,” which could potentially attract droves of new customers from Connecticut and Massachusetts to Rhode Island to buy their goods here, and generate a whole new source of money for the state.

kgregg@projo.com