Changes seem likely for one of Oklahoma’s most popular corporate tax incentives.
A Senate bill tweaking the Quality Jobs Act has advanced to the House Appropriations and Budget Committee. Rep. Matt Meredith asked Rep. Leslie Osborn just how much the measure will change for an incentive the state paid out $70 million for last year.
"If they start performing well and they’ve done what they need to be doing, after a certain period of time they come off that Quality Jobs Act?" Meredith said.
"This is just taking existing statute and adding the one clause that all incentive applications go through the full committee," Osborn said.
Currently, an incentive approval committee reviews the eligibility of only select applicants. Senate Bill 897 also does away with a provision letting some businesses claim quarterly payments for three years.
A provision that’s not changing is one requiring companies in many service industries to have at least 75 percent of their sales out of state.
"The program’s intended to be benefit-positive to the state, so for most service-based industries, which have to be here anyways, we have to ensure that they’re bringing new money in before we allow them to participate in an incentive," said John Chiappe with the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.
Proposed changes to Oklahoma’s Small Employer Quality Jobs Act that could let more businesses qualify are also moving forward in the House. Senate Bill 923 changes the employee cutoff from 90 to 500.
"It’s not shown to have any fiscal impact, but there’s people who kind of fall between the margins of the normal Quality Jobs Act and the Small Business Quality Jobs Act, and this will allow those people in the middle to have a portion that they could absolutely fit in," Osborn said.
Those numbers align with U.S. Small Business Administration definitions. The bill in some cases would also tie job creation requirements to a company’s full-time employment at the time it applied for the incentive.
