2003 Senate Bill 867 ↩

Senate Roll Call 41: Passed

To exempt for five years the commercial forestland owned or operated by a "qualified start-up business" from the commercial forest "specific tax" which is levied in lieu of property tax on commercial forestland. 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, is not publicly traded, and did not have net income for two consecutive tax years. This does not necessarily apply only to new firms, and the proposed five year exemption is not necessarily the firm's first five years of operation.