Revision of Rural Jobs Act would incentivize new small businesses

SALT LAKE CITY —  A bill updating Utah’s Rural Jobs Act would incentivize investors to create businesses in Utah’s rural communities.

House Bill 25 would provide a tax credit for investors who create small businesses with jobs that pay more than 100% of the county’s average wage, within a specified period of time.

House sponsor Rep. Nelson Abbott (R-District 60) said the bill was crafted after an audit of Utah’s Rural Jobs Act, which became law three years ago.

‘We’ve had $33 million invested in rural Utah over the past three years because of this program,” Abbott said. “That’s a tremendous amount of money to inject into rural Utah.” He expects the same amount of growth to come from the new bill.

“(But) one of the important changes in this bill is that 100% of the investment needs to be made in rural Utah,” Abbott said.

Abbott says different industries can apply to receive the tax credit, such as software development and agribusiness. But the deal is only for small small businesses within those industries.

To receive the tax credit, the businesses would have to create jobs within a certain amount of time.

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