South Carolina · Jobs · SC-SBJOBS-001
Small Business Jobs Credit
Publication revised September 24, 2026. Sourcebook page 246.
Credit amount / calculation
Per-job amount varies by county and wages; 15-year carryforward.
Business fit and eligible activity
Businesses with 99 or fewer employees can qualify with as few as two new full-time jobs. Hiring, wages or qualifying training; where the program also requires investment, satisfy both tests.
Eligibility and practical use
This is a hiring credit, not an equipment credit. It becomes interesting only when the planned headcount clears the program threshold and the new jobs satisfy wage, hours, location, and retention rules. A logging contractor should confirm that its industry or work location is within the eligible class before counting the jobs.
Illustrative business benefit
Use-of-credit illustration, not an estimated award: assume the agency or completed tax form establishes a $1,000 credit for the qualifying activity described above. If sufficient eligible tax is due, a $1,000 credit available for current use reduces that tax by $1,000. If annual limits allow only $600, that is this year's saving; the other $400 survives only if the carryforward or transfer rules permit. Obtain the actual program calculation before estimating a project benefit.
Timing / first action
Tax-year claim: document the eligible expense, hire or placed-in-service date and meet any separate certification deadline. Test the actual hiring plan against the net-new-job, wage, hours, location, and retention rules before assigning value to the credit.
Official sources
Related programs
Abandoned Building Revitalization Credit
Credit based on qualified rehabilitation expenditures
Useful where a mill rehabilitates a qualifying abandoned industrial building; notice must precede expenditures.
Capital Investment Credit
0.5% to 2
Directly relevant to mills placing qualified manufacturing and productive equipment in service.
Employer Child Care Program Credit
50% of eligible child-care startup costs
Forest-products employers establishing or operating qualified child care programs can claim a state credit.
Clean Electricity Investment Credit (Internal Revenue Code §48E)
Generally
Potentially relevant when a forest-products facility owns qualifying zero-emission generation or energy-storage property.
Clean Electricity Production Credit (Internal Revenue Code §45Y)
Production-based
Alternative to the investment credit for owners/operators of qualifying clean-electricity facilities; potentially relevant to qualifying on-site generation.
Credit for Increasing Research Activities (Internal Revenue Code §41)
Regular research-credit method
A sawmill, secondary manufacturer or biomass business can qualify when it performs genuine technological experimentation to improve a product or process.