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Business Groups, Life‑Sciences Advocates Push to Raise R&D Tax Credit Caps; BIA and DRA Offer Data Requests
Summary
HB 11‑02 would increase the state research and development tax credit cap from $7 million to $10 million and raise the per‑company cap from $50,000 to $100,000; business groups and life‑science trade associations urged the committee to expand capacity, while DRA and members asked for performance measures and geographic deployment data.
Representative John Genigian introduced HB 11‑02 to raise New Hampshire’s R&D tax credit program cap from $7 million to $10 million and to lift the maximum credit available to a single company from $50,000 to $100,000.
Mike Skelton, president and CEO of the Business & Industry Association (BIA), told the committee the credit has been fully subscribed historically and that similar states deploy larger or more generous R&D incentives. Skelton pointed the committee to two recent state reports (life sciences and advanced manufacturing) showing growth in those cluster sectors and argued modestly increasing the cap would keep New Hampshire competitive.
Andrea Echevarria of New Hampshire Life Sciences described sector metrics: more than 600 companies in the state, an average life‑science worker wage of about $130,000 and an industry contribution above $4 billion. She and other witnesses emphasized that the state R&D credit is designed for small and midsize companies and provides runway for long‑term product development, where commercialization can take a decade.
Small firms and contractors (for example, Elliott Controls) testified that R&D activity creates local manufacturing and contracting work. Committee members asked for accountability and performance measures: several members requested data on which firms benefit, county‑level deployment of credits and examples of small companies that succeeded because of the state credit. Witnesses and BIA offered to work with the committee on benchmarking and examples, and DRA was asked to provide additional geographic and historical program data.
The committee left the record open for additional materials and indicated staff would request further DRA analysis of program usage, geographic distribution and whether the proposed caps would remain sufficient to meet demand.
