Businesses eligible for tax credit on donations

MOSES LAKE — More business owners in Moses Lake will get a chance to apply for a 75 percent Business and Occupation (B & O) tax credit in 2018, thanks to new rules from the state legislature.

According to Michaelle Boetger, executive director of the Moses Lake Business Association (MLBA), business owners who donate to the association can receive a B & O tax credit for 75 percent of their donation.

“The Moses Lake Business Association is eligible and can participate,” she told a group a business people gathered at the Moses Lake Civic Center Monday evening.

Boetger said a donation of $1,000 to the MLBA in 2018 would mean a possible tax credit of $750 on 2019 business taxes.

In the past, however, these tax credits have gone quickly. According to Breanne Durham, the mainstream coordinator with the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, when the $1.5 million in tax credits were first offered in 2015, they weren’t all claimed until early May.

In 2016, those same tax credits were all snatched up by late on Jan. 4, while this year, they were all claimed by 6 a.m. on Jan. 1 — they day they became available.

In order to ensure that businesses in every town participating in the Main Street Revitalization program have an equal shot at receiving the tax credits, Durham said the state has nearly doubled the amount of money available for the credits to $2.5 million.

“We asked for $5 million, but ($2.5 million) is a lot better than $1.5 million,” Durham told the gathered businesspeople via Skype on Monday.

And instead of forcing business people to access the Department of Revenue’s website at the stroke on midnight on Jan. 1, Durham said that online applications for the tax credits will not be taken until the second Monday of January.

“It still starts at midnight, though,” she said.

The credits allow business people to fund local business associations directly. Boetger said the MLBA has used donations in the past to install the concrete planters, organize events, and promote the city’s downtown as a place to do business.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.

Editor’s note: This version corrects an earlier story that incorrectly reported the amount available for tax credits and that the individual cap was new. “The individual cap of $100k is not new, but rather we now have an allocation method for the first quarter,” Durham told the Herald.