Tax Candi

I recently caught "The American President" on TV -- it's a great movie for a lazy Sunday afternoon. My favorite scene comes early in the movie; President Shepherd develops a crush on Sydney Wade and wants to send her flowers, but not the typical roses. So he tries to send her the official flower of her home state Virginia, however no one can agree if a dogwood is a flower or a tree, but regardless the florist doesn't have those in stock. So, in the end, the President does the next best thing... he sends her a Virginia Ham. (This seems to make sense -- if flowers don't work, send meat.)

Anyways, that clip inspires today's post regarding...

Virginia's Enterprise Zone Program

Virginia's Enterprise Zone Program is administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. The Program provides state incentives to encourage business development and expansion in targeted Enterprise Zones (EZ). Incentives offered through the EZ program include:

The EZ Job Creation Grant: Qualified businesses located in an EZ are eligible for cash grants based upon the number of permanent net new jobs created. (Eligible businesses must created over four new positions.) The amount of the grant is for each job (over four) per year is:

up to $500 per job per year for each job over the threshold that pays at least 175% of the federal minimum wage; or

up to $800 per job per year for each job over the threshold that pays at least 200% of the federal minimum wage.

The grant is limited to 350 jobs per year, for up to five years.

The Enterprise Zone Real Property Investment Grant: Qualified zone investors making qualified investment in industrial, commercial or mixed-use real property located within an EZ are eligible for a cash grant. The amount of grant is equal to 20% of the investment up to a maximum of:

$100,000 for companies investing less than $5 million in qualified property investments; or

$200,000 for companies investing $5 million or more in qualified property investments.

In order to qualify for grants, investment must be at least $50,000 for rehabilitation or expansion projects , and at least $250,000 for new construction.