Business Development and Incentives
T
he Corporate Recruitment and Incentives program helps GOED fulfill its mission by recruiting new companies that add strategic value to Utah’s economy. It also supports the retention and expansion of existing Utah companies that form the backbone of Utah’s broad based economy. Together, growing existing companies and recruiting new companies creates new high paying jobs that help diversify the state economy, increase the tax base, attract and retain top-level management. An additional benefit to the State is that Utah businesses benefit when graduates of in-state universities want to remain and work in Utah improving the living standard of our communities and citizens.
GOED offers incentives in the form of post-performance refundable tax credits and cash grants. The incentive amount and duration is based on statutory guidelines and evaluation criteria including: • Number and salary of jobs created • Amount of new state revenue • Long-term capital investment • Competition with other locations, and
GOED contracts with the Economic Development Corpora• Whether the company is within a tion of Utah (EDCUtah) to help identify and recruit compa“Targeted Economic Cluster” nies to the State. In addition to proactive and strategic recruitment services, EDCUtah assists companies through the relocation process, including site selection, interaction with local government entities, and data gathering. Incentive commitments are handled exclusively by GOED as the State agency charged with the stewardship of state resources. GOED and EDCUtah work in close partnership to make a company’s relocation, or expansion in Utah as smooth as possible. During the 2009 General Session, the Utah State Legislature passed HB430, which created the Renewable Energy Development Act. The purpose of this bill is to create jobs by attracting direct manufacturing and power generation facilities in the renewable energy industry through the use of post-performance refundable tax credits in a similar fashion to the EDTIF incentive program. A companion piece of legislation, SB76, was also passed to assist in the distribution of power generated by renewable energy sources. A unique feature of Utah’s corporate recruitment, expansion, and retention incentives is that funds are awarded on a post-performance basis so that companies must meet specific milestones, including generating new state tax revenue, before incentives are disbursed. This feature eliminates risk and assures a positive return on investment to the State and citizens of Utah.
Also during the 2009 General Session SB14 was approved which increased the Motion Picture Incentive Fund from a 15% postperformance cash grant with a cap of $500,000 per production to a 20% Post-performance cash grant with a cap of $500,000 per production or a 20% refundable tax credit with no perproduction cap. This change in legislation will improve the State’s strategic positioning and allow Utah to be more competitive with other states in the country who are aggressively courting film productions. Utah’s film workforce has been developed over many years of work with the industry and the Legislature recognized the need to support continued job growth in Utah’s established film industry.
Governor’s Office of Economic Development • Annual Report 2009
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