Idaho Tax Incentives: What’s the Tradeoff?

The Idaho Department of Commerce homepage makes no bones about it. They want to recruit new businesses to the Gem State and encourage existing companies to expand by offering a slew of tax credits and incentives to make it happen.

Idaho Department of Commerce

The Commerce Department’s website lists 18 different business incentive programs.  Many of them are broad and open to any industry.  Some are very specific, like the Idaho Film Incentives, which offers discounted lodging and sales tax rebates for media production companies, among other things.

We’ll look at some of Idaho’s most popular tax incentive programs over the next few days and try to answer a few questions.  How do they work?  Who uses them?  What’s the tradeoff that the state is choosing to make when it forgoes tax revenue to spur investment?

And, we want to hear from you.  Does your business use tax credits to grow?  Are you skeptical of the growth touted through incentives? Share your thoughts throughout the week in the comment thread.