Joe Smith: House Republicans Pass a Bill Focusing on Job Creation in the State of Missouri House of Representatives

For years, Republicans in the House of Representatives have worked to improve economic development in the state of Missouri. In recent months, however, the focus on job creation has been even stronger due to our economic downturn. Putting our citizens back to work is a top priority in the House and we are passionate about our focus which is to create jobs, retain the jobs we already have in place and working to attract new business to our state.

States all over the nation are competing with us for jobs, and we must do all we can to prevent jobs leaving Missouri. That is why, this week we took a large step by passing HB 1675, which takes measures to improve and protect Missouri's business climate.

This particular bill focuses on creating and maintaining jobs in our state by targeting two groups: Manufacturing Employers as well as Manufacturing Suppliers.

Manufacturing Employers:

Through this bill, employers will be allowed to keep 50% of withholding taxes for up to 10 years.

This means, if manufacturing employers create new jobs, they get a tax rebate while doing so.

We are confident that this fiscal measure will give Missouri manufacturing businesses an incentive to expand their employee base and put our citizens back to work.

Manufacturing Suppliers:

The state of Missouri would allow suppliers to retain a complete 100% of withholding taxes for any new jobs created and kept for 3 years.

While giving these manufacturing employers and suppliers a tax break in effort to create new jobs, we must also remember to protect Missouri taxpayers in the process.

House Bill 1675 acts as a safeguard to taxpayers in many ways, some of which include the following:

1. If illegal aliens are employed, companies must repay the tax benefits granted to them.
2. If the company fails to meet the requirements in the bill, they will be required to repay benefits to the state.