H.3049 is a reintroduction of least session’s H.4875. Like the bill introduced last may H.3049 would require the Department of Revenue to complete a study every four years to assess the impact, including both the economic benefits and the financial cost, of economic development tax incentives. Included in the reports would be the baseline assessment of the incentive, statutory goals of the incentive, the number of companies it’s granted to, a cost-benefit comparison of the revenue foregone and the tax revenue generated by those receiving the credit, the estimated number of jobs created as a direct result, and more.
While seemingly a well-intended attempt to critically evaluate the state’s current cronyist tax policies, agency-led “studies” like this one almost always present government programs in an improbably favorable light. Politicians have a way of ignoring information that doesn’t verify the virtues of their favorite projects, and it seems unlikely that any “study” of tax incentives would prove any different.