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N.H. Senate Passes Targeted Tax Break for Organ Regeneration Businesses

Allegra Boverman, NHPR

The New Hampshire Senate on Thursday passed a bill that would give a tax exemption to businesses that focus on generating human organs. The measure comes after Manchester was chosen by the U.S. Department of Defense for an $80-million grant focused on manufacturing tissues and organs.

The project, which is called the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, or ARMI, is led by inventor Dean Kamen.

Republican Bob Guida told colleagues the tax breaks would have a ripple effect, eventually benefiting a range of communities.

“To offer this kind of an incentive gives us the opportunity to set the standard for a new world industry,” he said. “That is something I want for our state. I think our people, businesses and institutions all benefit, and ultimately will profit as well.”

The measure, which passed on a voice vote, would give for-profit companies that are associated with ARMI a ten-year exemption from both the state business profits tax, as well as the business enterprise tax.

Because no companies yet qualify for the exemption, the measure doesn’t cost the state, at this time, any revenue.

“This is not a question of ‘if’ the commercialization technology succeeds, it is a question of ‘where,’” said Republican Jeb Bradley, the bill’s prime sponsor. Senator Lou D’Allesandro, who represents Manchester, also spoke in favor of the plan, which now heads to the New Hampshire House.

Some fiscally conservative groups, including the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, criticized the measure, pointing out that New Hampshire rarely offers targeted tax incentives to specific industries or groups.

Todd started as a news correspondent with NHPR in 2009. He spent nearly a decade in the non-profit world, working with international development agencies and anti-poverty groups. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.
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