Business View Magazine - November 2016

Business View Magazine - November 2016 121 “I believe that we are on the move and we’re doing some things that are going to be putting us on the map, not only in Colorado, but nationally,” she de- clares. “One of the first things that our community has instituted in an effort to recruit new businesses into the area is called ‘Rural Jumpstart.’ It’s a program that was implemented in January of this year by the State of Colorado and Mesa County. We were the first county to enroll in the program and we are, currently, the only county that is qualifying businesses for this program.” Essentially, Rural Jumpstart is a tax holiday initiative. “It allows companies to be eligible to operate free of both state and local taxes for up to eight years,” Pol- lard explains. “The taxes that they will waive are corpo- rate income tax, income tax for the employees, state and local sales and use tax, state and local business personal property tax, and real property tax at the lo- cal level. So, it’s a significant savings for companies that locate here.” In order to qualify for the program, a company must be new and innovative with a product or service that’s unique to Colorado and not in competition with a busi- ness that already exists in the state. So far, Pollard says that seven businesses have qualified since Janu- ary. She talks about a few of them: “ProStar Geocorp is a software company that has developed a platform AT A GLANCE WHO: The Grand Junction Economic Partnership WHAT: A private, non-profit economic develop- ment agency WHERE: Grand Junction, Colorado WEBSITE : www.gjep.org