2004 Senate Bill 1305 ↩

House Roll Call 644: Passed

To allow local governments to exempt for five years a "qualified start-up business" that is a for-profit company which has not made a profit and which is leasing tax-exempt property, from the real and personal property tax that would otherwise be levied. 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.