2004 Senate Bill 1303 ↩

House Roll Call 642: Passed

To allow local governments to exempt for five years a "qualified start-up business" that has not made a profit from the "city utility users tax." A "qualified start-up business" is defined as a firm that has fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees, has annual sales of less than $1 million, has research and development expenses that make up at least 15-percent of its annual expenses, and is not publicly traded. This does not necessarily apply only to new firms, and the five year exemption is not necessarily the firm's first five years of operation.