If there’s one thing our broad experience has taught us, it’s this: One size does not fit all. Our dedicated industry practices are designed to get you ahead of the curve with advisors who understand the day-to-day demands, dynamics, and challenges of your business and industry — and can deliver tailored solutions that allow you to capitalize on trends and opportunities.
South Carolina continues to attract businesses with its pro-growth policies and competitive incentives. Among these, the South Carolina New Jobs Credit stands out as a valuable program that rewards businesses for creating and maintaining jobs across the state. This initiative helps companies reduce costs while strengthening local economies by driving job creation and reducing unemployment.
Designed with a tiered structure, the program prioritizes areas with higher unemployment and lower income levels, ensuring that the greatest support reaches the communities that need it most. Businesses can use the credits to offset up to 50% of corporate or individual income tax, bank tax, or insurance premium tax. Eligible entities include C-corporations, S-corporations, partnerships, sole proprietors, and LLCs, with unused credits carried forward for fifteen years.
The South Carolina New Jobs Credit offers businesses a unique opportunity to reduce tax liabilities while contributing to their community. In this guide, we’ll break down how the credit works, eligibility requirements, and additional opportunities, such as bonuses for Brownfield sites.
How the Credit Works
For each new, full-time job created in South Carolina, the tax credit ranges in value from $1,500 - $25,000 per job per year, depending on the county’s tier. Counties are tiered based on unemployment rates and per capita income, with Tier IV counties offering the highest incentives. The credit is available for up to five years per job, provided eligibility requirements are met.
Job Creation Thresholds
To qualify, businesses must create and maintain a specific number of new jobs:
Large Employers (100+ employees): Must create at least 10 new jobs in the first year and maintain them through year two to claim the credit.
Small Employers (<100 employees): Must create at least 2 new jobs in the first year, which can be claimed on the same year’s tax return under the "accelerated" small business job tax credit program.
For small businesses, jobs must meet a wage threshold test to determine whether they qualify for the full credit or 50%. As long as the initial jobs are maintained, businesses can continue earning credits for those jobs and any additional new jobs for five years.
Example:
If a large employer creates an average of 12 new jobs in 2025 and maintains that level for the next five years, and the business is located in a Tier IV County, the employer would create $1.5 million in job tax credits for the five years following year one.
Located on a Brownfield Site?
Taxpayers who qualify for the New Jobs Credit and who are located on a cleaned-up Brownfield site are eligible for a “bonus” $1,000 per job, per year, in addition to the county’s base credit amount. Eligible taxpayers need not be the party responsible for cleaning up the site, so long as they are not the “responsible party” for the contamination.
Example:
A warehousing company leasing space on a cleaned-up Brownfield site in Greenville County (Tier I) would earn $1,500 base credit + $1,000 bonus credit = $2,500 per qualifying job, per year, for five years.
Next Steps
If your business has expanded and created jobs within the last three to five years, you may qualify for retroactive job tax credits. However, the requirements and rules are complex, and a detailed analysis is necessary to maximize benefits.
Questions to Consider:
Has the business created new jobs that exceed the required job creation thresholds in the past three to five years?
Is there an opportunity to pair the job tax credits with other economic incentives?
Are there plans to expand the business’s workforce in the especially advantageous Tier III or Tier IV counties?
Qualifying Industries
The South Carolina New Jobs Credit is available to businesses across a wide range of industries, including:
Manufacturing
Tourism
Processing
Warehousing and distribution
Research and development
Corporate offices (meeting certain criteria)
Technology-intensive facilities
Banking
Healthcare-related facilities
Agribusiness and agricultural packaging
Professional sports teams
Extraordinary retail establishments
Retail and service industries in Tier IV counties
We Can Help
Are you missing out on this valuable tax benefit? At Elliott Davis, our team of experienced State and Local Tax (SALT) professionals can help you identify, apply for, and maximize these incentives. Whether you need assistance with state income taxes, property taxes, or sales taxes, our SALT experts are here to guide you through every step of the process.
The information provided in this communication is of a general nature and should not be considered professional advice. You should not act upon the information provided without obtaining specific professional advice. The information above is subject to change.
Do you struggle with data modeling and data sources? Our team of certified Microsoft® Power BI™ analysts have been working with our customers to leverage the end-to-end platform to create powerful insights into their business. Through our work, we have identified several best practices or lessons learned we want to share to help you on your journey in building a data-driven culture through business intelligence.
The second article in our series is focused on data engineering and DAX. The challenges of data engineering, transformation, and writing DAX calculations are real, but these eight best practices will help you elevate your work with this powerful tool.
Avoid using too many transformations in Power Query
Streamline the number of transformations you use for greater efficiency when loading and refreshing datasets
Helps reduce memory usage and aids in improving performance
Know when to use the "Direct Query" or "Import" when connecting to data sources
"Direct Query" allows for an unlimited data size and the ability to schedule refreshes up to every 15 minutes from a single source
"Import" is best for when you need data stored in the Power BI cache, it has the ability to pull from multiple sources and has a high-performance query engine, especially when you do not need to schedule refreshes as often
Both are great options, but one is usually better dependent on the specific scenario
Create an "index" column when source data doesn't contain a unique identifier
Sometimes it is necessary to create your own primary key for a dataset, if one is not already included
This will help uniquely identify each record and help establish connections to other data sources
This column also aids in removing duplicate rows if they were accidentally created during other transformations
Minimize the number of load queries by merging datasets
You don't have to load all the datasets you're connecting to. Instead you can use the "Merge" data transformation tool to combine datasets and load fewer into the model.
Speeds up processing and refresh times
Allows you to keep only needed columns and decreases file size
Use 'Calculated Measures', not 'Calculated Columns', for overall data model performance
Calculated Measures perform data operations only when called in a report and generally take up much less storage than Calculated Columns, which cache data in the file and can slow down data refreshes
Use "Calculate" function to quickly add in the "Filter" function as needed
Instead of simply using the "Sum", "Average", or another function, wrap this function with the "Calculate" method to give yourself more flexibility and improve capabilities
In the second parameter of "Calculate" you can add as many filters as you need, as long as your tables are connected in the data model
Create "Union" tables for greater customization
With a simple "Union" function you can create custom tables using columns from multiple tables in a format you need
This is great for creating a flexible trend axis with a slicer to select a cadence to view different scenarios, such as aggregations by week or by month
You can use this new table in your data model and make connections as well
Make custom formatting measures using the “Switch” function
By using the “Switch” function you can select specific table values to format, whether that’s the row’s background or font color
Use hex codes in quotations to designate the desired color
Use this measure in the conditional formatting section as “Field Value” for desired formatting effect
We Can Help
Contact a team member to learn more about our data analytics services. Check out our first Power BI resource article about best practices in data modeling and source.
Do you struggle with data modeling and data sources? Our team of certified Microsoft Power BI analysts have been working with our customers to leverage the end-to-end platform to create powerful insights into their business. Through our work, we have identified several best practices or lessons learned we want to share to help you on your journey in building a data-driven culture through business intelligence.
The fourth in our series is focused on security and administration functions. The challenges of securing data and managing your resources are real. But we have 8 best practices to help you!
1. Enable Row-Level Security (RLS)
Based on defined user roles in the Power BI report, this feature will limit which data records users can view
Helps define needs by user and limits data scope
2. Use the built-in Power BI connectors to various sources (such as Intuit® QuickBooks™, Amazon® Web Services™, Microsoft® Azure™, etc.)
Utilizing these already developed data connectors in the Power BI desktop apps builds in security from the start
Power BI shields your login credentials from other users who access the file, and will periodically ask you to sign in again to verify your identity
Power BI is not an integrated development environment and so does not have the capability to house environment variables, therefore API keys and other credentials will not be found and stolen
3. Schedule automated data refreshes in Power BI Service
Click on the desired dataset in Power BI Service, and then "Refresh" at the top, then "Schedule refresh"
Under the settings you can select the login credentials you wish to use to connect to online data sources, and define how often/what time data refreshes should occur
Additionally, if the refresh fails, you can add-in addresses to receive notifications
Quickly set up automated data refreshes
4. Add Viewers, Contributors, Members and Administrators to Power BI Service workspaces
Add members of your organization to access workspace at four levels: Viewer, Contributor, Member, and Administrator by clicking on the "Access" tab in the service workspace; Credentials for each include:
Administrator: Above and add/remove other users including administrator privileges
Member: Above and can feature dashboards on the Service, share items and allow others to reshare, and publish/republish dashboards
Contributor: Above and create, edit, copy, and delete workspace items privileges
Viewer: Read-only access
5. Enable Object-Level Security (OLS)
On the Modeling tab in the ribbon, you can create roles in "Manage Roles" which allows you to control which groups can access certain tables in the data model
Verify security settings are correct by clicking "View as" to test out the data model view according to your requirements
6. Use the Performance Analyzer in Power BI Desktop to measure your dashboard's efficiency
First click on "Start recording" and then click through different visuals on your report
Upon stopping recording, you will see a list of each visual and how long it took each to query the data and render the information onto the page
This provides insight into the details of your report performance and identifies bottlenecks and areas of improvement
7. Utilize Metrics in Power BI Service
For tracking key performance indicators across a business or project, consider using scorecards in the “Metrics” section of Power BI Service
You can add different owners, start and end dates, statuses, and even multiple targets for a metric to reach
Easily connect metric values to existing data sets for hands off tracking
Keep current performances visible to your team and organization
Set up metric scorecards to keep track of progress
8. Submit your ideas to the Power BI development team
If you have thoughts on how Power BI could be better, you can click on the "Submit an Idea" button on the “Help” tab of the ribbon
Here you can see others' ideas and vote on which ones the team should prioritize
This page can also help you figure out clever ways of implementing solutions in the application
We Can Help
Contact a team member to learn more about our data analytics services. Check out our first, second, and third Power BI resource articles about best practices in data modeling and source.
The information provided in this communication is of a general nature and should not be considered professional advice. You should not act upon the information provided without obtaining specific professional advice. The information above is subject to change.