Nixon Visits St. Charles, Touts Tax Deduction for Job Creation

Gov. Jay Nixon stopped at the on Tuesday as part of his statewide tour to promote bipartisan efforts at job creation.   

Nixon spoke briefly to a small crowd about House Bill 1661, a bill which provides a tax deduction for businesses that create new jobs in the next two years. 

Small businesses with 50 employees or fewer can receive a $10,000 tax deduction for each new job they create. The jobs must pay the county prevailing wage, which varies for each profession, or the state average wage. See the prevailing wage list for St. Charles County here. 

The business must keep employees for 52 weeks and the bill includes a look-back provision. Businesses can receive a $20,000 tax deduction if the employer pays at least 50 percent of the  insurance premium for that job. The tax deduction can be claimed during tax years 2012, 2013 and 2014. Find out more about the program here. 

"The Legislature did what we needed to get done here, which is targeted tax," he said. "We don't need to have small businesses that are built simply and solely on a model that has the government sector supplementing them, but what we need to do is send a clear signal and pulse this economy to move us forward when we have these opportunities to invest." 

Nixon also talked about the Missouri Small Business Loan Program which offers loans of up to $50,000 at 3 percent interest for 10 years for businesses that have 15 employees or fewer. 

More than 50 small businesses have received loans through this program. Learn more about that here. 

In St. Peters, Trinity Web Solutions used a loan from this program as it got started. 

County Executive Steve Ehlmann said the driving force for jobs in St. Charles County is small businesses. 

"This is a great thing for all of those small businesses that have been created and which we need to continue to create," he said. 

Greg Upchurch, owner of , said any kind of loan could help a small business, but he wonders what kind of process a business owner would have to go through to qualify. 

He said for now, demand what drives his decisions about whether to expand his business or add fulltime jobs.