Indiana has a history of doling out large incentive packages to large companies. Its Research Expense Credit costs close to $100 million a year and is available to all eligible companies without competition. Other large programs include the Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) and the Hoosier Business Investment (HBI) tax credit programs.
Most of Indiana’s incentive programs are administered by the privatized Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) which succeeded the Department of Commerce in 2005. Since 2010, the agency has found itself enmeshed in one scandal after another.
Despite state confidentiality laws prohibiting the full cost report of some programs, Indiana is quite transparent at the recipient level. The IEDC maintains a database of tax credits, grants, and loans, and it is one of the very few state incentive databases that include full agreements for every project. Furthermore, users can download a spreadsheet of all projects that satisfy the parameters they choose.
The Indiana State Budget Agency publishes a tax expenditure analysis every two years with three-year forecasts broken down by program and type of tax. Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs) are issued by the state auditor’s office and omit the amount of corporate income tax abated for two programs due to confidentiality laws. A few of Indiana’s local governments report tax abatements, but its school districts use an alternative accounting standard and are therefore not subject to Statement No.77.
The Office of Fiscal and Management Analysis of the Legislative Services Agency (LSA) publishes annual reports evaluating subsets of Indiana’s tax incentives on a five-year-cycle. These reports contain academic literature reviews and fairly sophisticated economic analyses.