California legislature passes bill to spur growth

The California Senate and House of Representatives passed a bill that would institute tax reforms and create incentives for manufacturing and biotech that are designed to encourage economic growth in the state. Starting Jan. 1, 2014, the bill would create an exemption to the state's portion of the sales and use tax for manufacturing and biotech equipment. The exemption, which would have an annual cap of $200 million per company, would apply for 6.5 years for companies in pre-defined economically depressed areas, and for 4.5 years in the rest of the state.

Additionally, the bill would create a hiring credit for new hires who perform at least 50% of their work within predefined areas and are "hard to hire." The bill also would establish the California Competes tax credit, through which businesses could compete for funding based on criteria that include the number of jobs created and retained and wages. The bill would reserve 25% of the hiring and California Competes credits for small businesses with gross revenues of less than $2 million. ...