A new bill in the Alabama House updates state tax incentives for those using Alabama ports, including the Port of Mobile, giving them larger breaks the more they ship.
House Bill 293 is sponsored by Rep. Chip Brown, R-Hollingers Island. Brown is chairman of the new House committee focused on expanding the state’s use of its waterways for shipping.
“One of our goals is to increase the shipment of cars that are manufactured in Alabama through our ports, but it’s also aimed at other manufacturers in Alabama and also we want it to be used as an economic development tool to bring more companies to Alabama,” Brown told Alabama Daily News.
Brown’s bill changes an existing port credit, applied to a business’ income tax liability, so that the credit increases with their cargo volume. On the highest end of the scale, an increase of 25% or more over their base volume, established over a 12-month period, would result in a credit of $125 per twenty-foot equivalent container unit, a shipping measurement.
The bill also allows companies with increased volume to claim increased jobs credits on wages paid to employees the prior year.
Brown has previously said the Port of Mobile has the potential to “leapfrog” other Southeastern ports’ capabilities and he and other lawmakers want Alabama goods, including automobiles, shipped out of Mobile, not Charleston or Savannah.
The Alabama Port Authority had a record 2022, shipping 563,191 twenty-foot equivalent container units.
The bill will start in the House education budget committee because the tax incentives would impact Education Trust Fund revenues. It has 19 co-sponsors.