Work From Home Cost Texas Companies $20 Million in Tax Breaks. The State Wants to Fix That
Companies passed up $20 million in state payouts by letting employees work from home. Now Texas is revising its program to reflect the new hybrid work reality.
Texas’s Enterprise Zone Program gives tax refunds to businesses that create jobs in economically distressed areas of the state, including Harris County, where Houston is located.
Photographer: Duy Do/Moment via Getty Images
Texas businesses have forgone more than $20 million in state incentives over the past few years by allowing employees to work remotely the majority of the time, according to state leaders who are revising Texas’s economic development strategy for a post-Covid era.
The figure comes from a fiscal analysis of proposed legislation HB 1515. The bill would transform Texas’s multibillion-dollar Enterprise Zone Program, which gives tax refunds to certain businesses that locate in economically distressed areas of the state. In the incentive program’s current form, the size of the payout depends in part on the number of employees hired or retained who come to an office or project site more than 50% of the time.