Tuesday, April 28, 2009

JPMorgan Chase Gets Ohio Tax Break To Create 1,000 Jobs

From BizJournals.com:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. was awarded incentives by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to help the bank create 1,000 jobs in Columbus.

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) will save about $14 million during 15 years under the terms of a state incentive approved Monday. The financial services company also is set to gain $8.3 million in tax credits and cash from the city of Columbus.

The company received the 15-year, 75 percent tax credit against its state tax obligation in exchange for its pledge to create 1,000 jobs in Columbus and 150 jobs in Westerville during the next five years. About 900 of those jobs would be created during the next three years.

The state tax deal requires the company to keep the jobs in the region for 30 years.

Columbus has offered JPMorgan Chase two incentives that would bring in an additional $4.5 million in the city’s coffers over eight years, according to the city.

A proposed eight-year, 35 percent Job Growth Incentive from the city would return an estimated $2.5 million of individual payroll taxes withheld to the company over the term of the incentive. The city also has offered a 10-year, 65 percent Job Creation Tax Credit worth $5.8 million over the term. That credit would be applied against the company’s corporate income tax obligation to the city.

City Council will consider the incentive package in May.

Nearly 11,000 of the current 14,000 JPMorgan Chase jobs in the region are in Columbus and nearly 3,000 jobs in Westerville, according to bank spokesman Jeff Lyttle.

About 8,000 jobs are at the company’s operations center at Polaris Centers of Commerce and about 3,000 are at Easton, he said.

The distribution of the jobs at office buildings in Columbus and Westerville remains unclear.

“There’s still some moving parts to settle,” Lyttle said.

JPMorgan Chase also is considering sites in New York, Michigan, Louisiana and Texas.