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Alessi introduces job creation bills

Assemblyman Marc Alessi (D-Shoreham) has introduced two bills aimed at job creation on Long Island.

The first would increase tax credits for start-up companies. His second bill, if it were to become law, would give tax credits to investors as an incentive to invest in companies in the state, and would also give tax credits to companies for expenses such as testing, prototyping, designing, lab equipment, product promotion, market research and licensing fees.

Mr. Alessi argued that New York State lacks the business ecosystem to foster innovation, but has a wealth of potential jobs looming due to the state’s many assets, including the workforce, research and patents. The state is currently losing jobs to places with similar tax issues, he said, such as Boston, Mass., Silicon Valley, Calif., and Houston, Texas.

Mr. Alessi, who chairs the Assembly’s subcommittee on the emerging workforce, said the state needs to offer assistance in business planning and, most importantly, provide incentives for investors to grow small businesses in the state. His recommendations come after a year of researching New York’s assets, the findings of which he published in a report released Monday.

“We have more engineers and researchers per capita in our area than most other areas in the U.S.,” he said at a press event in Shoreham. “With that intellectual quotient, we should be doing a whole lot more in terms of creating new products and creating new jobs.”

The goal of both bills is help facilitate the process of turning concepts into products.

“This is the new model for creating jobs in New York State,” he said. “The old model of throwing tax money at a target to bring retail jobs to New York State — those jobs are coming anyway, and it’s a waste of our tax dollars.

“These targeted tax credits will make a difference and will create good-paying jobs right here in our community,” Mr. Alessi said.

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This post was originally published Oct. 13