Questions have long lingered over the effectiveness of tax credits and incentives, but the states can’t seem to live without them.

Rhode Island recently enacted legislation that provides for a study to be conducted of all the state’s tax incentives to see whether they are meeting their intended goals, according to a Stateline article.

Meanwhile, other states are plowing ahead with newly revamped tax credit and incentive plans.

California recently ended its enterprise zone program and replaced it with new tax credits that will more create jobs more effectively, reports a Bloomberg BNA Weekly State Tax Report article. The tax credits include a new hiring credit for employers in areas of the state with the highest unemployment and poverty rates, a sales tax exemption on equipment purchases for manufacturing and biotechnology, and a fund to give tax incentives to specific companies that locate or expand in the state.

Similarly New York enacted a new tax credit program, called START-UP NY, aimed at encouraging new businesses to move to New York, especially the upstate area, by offering various tax incentives to businesses and their employees when they locate to tax-free areas on or near universities and colleges, notes another Bloomberg BNA Weekly State Tax Report article.

For more information about the tax credits and incentives offered by the various states, check out Bloomberg BNA’s Credits and Incentives Portfolios.


In other developments . . .
The Louisiana Department of Revenue will implement three tax amnesty periods before the end of 2015, which will apply to all taxes except motor fuel taxes, according to a Bloomberg BNA Weekly State Tax Report article by State Tax Law Editor Mike Daze.

By:  Kathleen Caggiano

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