A Tax Incentive That Might Make Sense

December 22, 2016

Since municipalities seem to want to hand out tax incentives to all and sundry, why don’t they give tax credits to businesses that let their employees go home early when bad weather looms?

Last Friday afternoon – early Saturday, Missouri Highway Patrol dealt with 400 crashes due to icy roads. Rush hour was, of course, a nightmare. And can anyone forget the Chicago blizzard of 2011, when hundreds of cars were abandoned on Lake Shore Drive because no one could get anywhere? There was plenty of warning that the bad weather was coming; it didn’t take anyone by surprise.

Maybe businesses could be encouraged to do the right thing by getting help in offsetting potential revenue loss. I would much rather see my tax dollars go there than to fund another sports stadium or a business expansion.

  

Business owners: If you’re afraid of losing revenue by letting people go home early for safety reasons, get your Disaster Plan up and running. A good plan has contingencies for working off-site, and minimizing revenue loss.

So get cracking.