Senate passes bill to rewrite state’s business incentive offerings

The Mississippi Senate has approved an overhaul of the state’s business incentive offerings. 

The ‘ Mississippi Flexible Tax Incentive Act’— more simply identified as ‘M-Flex’ —was discussed by Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann prior to the beginning of the 2021 session as a way to reorganize the state’s incentives through the simplification of the calculation of benefits for companies coming to or expanding their business in Mississippi.

Passed with a unanimous vote on the floor, Senator David Parker described the three key intentions of the bill. 

1. To streamline incentives into one easy-to-use calculation based largely on investment, jobs, wages and benefits. 
2. Making this one flexible incentive competitive as compared to other states to attract businesses to Mississippi. 
3. Increased transparency – allowing the public and economic developers to understand whether it’s useful and fulfills its intended purpose. 

Senator Parker also explained that the incentive program would be performance-based as opposed to promise-based; meaning that in order to receive the full incentives, a business must first follow through on the outlined number of jobs and total investment into the state rather than receiving it all upfront. 

Back in December, Hosemann expressed his hope that the new program would target and attract small and medium businesses to Mississippi in order to raise the labor participation rate.

The bill now moves over to the House for consideration.

The full 54-page bill can be viewed, here.

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