Comparing State Tax Incentives For Aerospace Manufacturing Cluster Growth

South Carolina has felt the ripple effects of The Boeing Company’s recently constructed Charleston plant in the form of new jobs, higher average income, and improved infrastructure. Boeing’s multi-million dollar investment in the state has increased the flow of suppliers into South Carolina, while also expanding the correlated support chain. This sequence of compounding growth is described in the University of South Carolina’s Economic Impact Study as the influx of aerospace-related companies attributed to Boeing. Building on the findings of the Economic Impact Study, legislative reform can maximize South Carolina’s cluster growth with readily available tax incentives and public financing. This study aims to evaluate the calculated quality of in-state tax incentives and perform a direct comparison of similar incentives existent in competitor aerospace industry states. In a joint effort of the South Carolina Aerospace Initiative and the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the comparison of competitor aerospace states revealed a deficiency of tax incentives in South Carolina and pinpointed the most common aerospace-specific tax incentives