Most growing businesses have heard of R&D tax credits, jobs tax credits, training

credits, and investment tax credits. Many have worked with advisors to capture the

Georgia Retraining Tax Credit or pursued R&D credits tied to qualifying research

activity. These are statutory incentives - written into law, available to businesses that meet the criteria, file correctly, and on time.

If your business is claiming them, that's a meaningful win. It means someone on your

team, or advising your team, is paying attention to what's available and making sure you're not leaving money on the table.

But statutory credits are only part of the picture.

There Is a Larger Landscape - And Many Businesses Never See It.

The statutory credits your tax team files for each year represent one category of

incentives: programs defined in the tax code, with published eligibility rules, applied

uniformly to every qualifying business that claims them.

There is a second category that operates entirely differently. It doesn't live in the tax

code. It isn't always filed on a return. It doesn't apply uniformly to anyone.

It is negotiated - strategically, directly, and only for businesses that know how and when to pursue it.

This category is referred to as discretionary incentives, and it encompasses a range of

financial benefits - cash grants, property tax abatements, sales tax relief, infrastructure investment, training reimbursements, forgivable loans - that state and local economic development agencies offer businesses making meaningful economic commitments to their regions.

Job creation. Capital investment. Facility decisions. Workforce expansion. The same

activities that make your business eligible for statutory credits can also open the door to discretionary financial support that can significantly increase the total value of your

incentives and increase your long-term ROI.

Why Statutory and Discretionary Work Better Together

Think of it this way: statutory credits reward you for what you've done: The Georgia Jobs Tax Credit recognizes jobs you've created. The Retraining Credit recognizes the workforce investment you've made, and R&D credits recognize qualifying research expenditures. These programs validate activity that's already occurred and return a portion of its cost.

Discretionary incentives must be secured upstream, well ahead of investment and job growth activity: what a business is planning to do, where it may plan to do it, and over what timeline. They are negotiated before decisions are finalized - when a business still has leverage over where an investment will land. All the while, state, regional, and local jurisdictions may be actively competing to attract it.

Together, they create a complete incentive strategy: statutory programs that recover

costs on activity already incurred and discretionary programs that reduce the cost of future activity before it's committed.

The Businesses That Benefit The Most

You don't need to be Apple or Amazon to access discretionary incentives. The same

economic development framework that produces headline-generating deals for large corporations is available - at an appropriate scale - to mid-market businesses making significant investments:

• A manufacturer adding production lines and new, well-paying jobs
• A distribution operation expanding into a new facility
• A technology company scaling its workforce in a targeted market
• A business establishing a U.S. operation with significant investments and new jobs

These are often the kinds of projects that economic development agencies are

designed to support. Their mission is to retain and recruit business investment that

advances their regional economic goals - and they have financial tools to do it.

The businesses that access those tools are the ones that understand they exist and

know how to effectively engage with economic developers ahead of making a location, investment, or job growth decisions.

What This Means for Your Business Right Now

If your organization is currently claiming Georgia Jobs Tax Credits, Retraining Credits, or R&D credits, you are already thinking about incentives correctly. You have a team or an advisor who understands the value of these programs and makes sure you capture

what you've earned.

The question worth asking is whether that same discipline extends to the discretionary side of the equation.

Are there facility decisions, capital investments, or hiring initiatives planned in the next 12 to 24 months that could benefit from proactive engagement with economic

development agencies? Has your current operational footprint been evaluated for

discretionary incentive opportunities that may have been overlooked? If your business has gone through a transaction recently, have the incentive agreements that were or should have been transferred been inventoried?

These aren't hypothetical questions. For businesses with meaningful growth on the

horizon, they have real dollar answers.

The Complete Picture

Statutory credits are a foundation. They are reliable, rules-based, and valuable. Every

qualifying business should be capturing them fully.

Yet a foundation isn't a strategy. A complete incentive strategy accounts for both what the tax code provides automatically, and what the economic development community offers to businesses willing to engage it.

The businesses building on both expend significantly less capital than their competitors - many of whom are unaware of the second category of incentives entirely.

Now you are.

Interested in understanding how your current business activities and growth plans intersect with the broader incentive landscape? Our team specializes in statutory credits and works alongside trusted partners who navigate the discretionary side. Together, we help growing businesses see and capture the full picture.

By Shelly Carmichael