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Economic developers raise concerns as lawmakers review bill limiting tax 'double-dip' for job-creation credits
Summary
Representative Larry Brewster told the Senate Tax Committee that House Bill 16 would prevent businesses from claiming both a job-creation tax credit and a tax deduction for the same employment increase.
Representative Larry Brewster presented House Bill 16 to the Senate Tax Committee as a cleanup measure from the interim revenue review of tax-credit statutes. Brewster said the bill clarifies that businesses may choose either the job-creation tax credit or a tax deduction for the same employees — they cannot claim both.
"For the most part, if you have a business with five employees and you add another five employees, you get a tax credit," Representative Larry Brewster said, describing the program and the committee’s goal to prevent “double dipping.”
Alison Corbin, who identified herself as representing the Montana Economic Developers Association, said her group was in "soft opposition." Corbin asked the committee to preserve a specific flexibility that, in her account, allows programs administered by the Montana Board of Investments to count significant salary increases as additional jobs when calculating loan sizing or interest-rate buy-downs. Corbin said practitioners had not widely used the flexibility, but removing it could constrain some local economic-development strategies.
Jake Ford, a bureau chief at the Department of Revenue, appeared as an informational witness and said he was available to answer technical questions about the credit portion of the program.
Committee members asked whether a clause removing consideration of increased salaries and wages had been struck from the bill; Brewster responded that an amendment on the House floor to enhance that language had been defeated and that the bill as prepared for the committee retained the original language. Transcript discussion showed some confusion among committee members over whether the printed copy before them reflected that defeated amendment.
At executive action the committee chose to hold House Bill 16 for further review rather than take a final vote, indicating members wanted time to reconcile the bill copy with the amendment history and to consider the concerns raised by economic-development practitioners.
