From the ashes of Measure 97, opponents fear, there will rise not a phoenix, but another gross receipts tax.

A new ad campaign, hitting the tube this week, is targeted at “educating” Oregonians about what opponents charge are the effects of a tax assessed on businesses based on their gross sales receipts.

Their tagline: “It’s really a sales tax.”

At the very least, it’s savvy marketing. The very concept of a sales tax is practically anathema to Oregonians, who by and large seem to like living in one of four states without one.

“Don’t ever talk about sales tax in Oregon,” State Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, warned the Oregon Capitol Insider prior to the start of the legislative session. What might fly? A proposal that’s branded as a “broad-based consumption tax,” Bentz said.

Proponents of a GRT — there’s more than one version being bandied about by legislators and interest groups at the Capitol — say that a broader-based business tax could help alleviate what have been called the “crazy gyrations” of a system that’s dependent on the income tax.

State economists have helpfully superimposed the state’s income tax revenue onto a photo of the Swiss Alps to demonstrate its volatility.

The ad campaign’s spokesperson, former State Rep. John Davis, R-Wilsonville — a former member of the House Revenue Committee — claims that a gross receipts tax is just as vulnerable to swings in the economy. When times are bad, he says, people spend less; and when times are good, they buy more. Further, he argues, assuming the cost of the tax trickles down to the consumer, the tax is regressive and would have a disproportionate impact on low- and middle-income taxpayers.

The group behind the ad, Priority Oregon, is just the latest interest group to coalesce around the state’s budget issues, but they say that they have one focus — preventing a gross receipts tax from seeing the light of day — and don’t advocate one way or another on other tax proposals.