In the Equality State,
All Things Are Not Equal

Known in equal measure for its wealthy land and residents and for its knack for unfettered liberty, Wyoming imposes no corporate state income tax, no personal state income tax and no inventory tax. Its low property taxes are matched by a low statewide sales tax of 4 percent, with a local option to raise it by a maximum of only 2 percent.
        It's all related to what amounts to a $1.6-billion trust fund created by the energy industry's mineral severance tax. Even with a proposed 13-percent price increase for its electricity, PacifiCorp's Wyoming division can still claim among the lowest prices in the nation. But there are other kinds of energy rampant in the state too.

See the SITES Colorado Technology Alliance www.coloradota.org Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. www.coloradosprings.org Bitzer Real Estate Partners/ CORFAC International www.bitzerrep.com MH Corporate Services, LLC/TCN Worldwide www.mhcorporateservices.com Wyoming Business Council www.wyomingbusiness.org Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization www.southernidaho.org Economic Development Corp. of Utah www.edcutah.org Montana Associated Technology Roundtables www.matr.net

        In 2002, Voice Viewer Technologies announced that it would locate most of its corporate activities in Powell and hire up to 200 people by 2004. That followed on the Lowe's distribution center project, which serves 72 stores from Cheyenne. The site, which had briefly caught the eye of Wal-Mart years before, came onto Lowe's radar while company leaders were on a site tour of other locations: Greeley and Fort Collins, Colo., and another spot in Utah.
        For that project and others, Wyoming officials have been able to tout training grants of up to $2,000 per employee, and a modified curriculum adapted from Georgia's QuickStart program. State recruiting efforts are also concentrating on keeping in-state alumni of the University of Wyoming, who often gravitate toward the better prospects and more-populated metros of neighboring Colorado.
        Meanwhile, Casper is growing as a retail and services center, and the triad of Gillette, Sheridan and Buffalo is benefiting from proximity to Rapid City, S.D. State economic developers are targeting plastics and back office projects, most with a job maximum of 500, owing to the state's sparse population.
        Among measures signed into law by new Gov. Dave Freudenthal was the establishment of an $8.4-million renewable fund to support "business-ready" communities around the state. In March 2003, a bill passed authorizing the state to provide up to $5.1 million (to be matched by $3.2 million from the City of Laramie) to construct a technology business center on the University of Wyoming campus.
        Three proposed legislative measures portray an accurate picture of the state economy: a measure to exempt manufacturing machinery from the excise tax did not make it to the governor's desk, while measures to exempt aircraft and farming equipment did.
        Other developments were more reassuring to corporations. One that would have raised industrial property tax from 11.5 percent to 13.5 percent was "indefinitely postponed." The same fate befell a proposal to establish a committee for the purpose of studying various iterations of business and corporate taxation.