The practice of hiring individuals with a criminal record is always controversial, however with the current state of the market, the state of California offers local businesses tremendous tax benefits for these employees.  A good example of a city taking advantage of this principle is Oakland.  Because much of Oakland is designated as an “Enterprise Zone” by the state, employers can save tens of thousands of dollars in state taxes, according to Susana Villarreal, the city’s enterprise zone coordinator.  Employers can deduct up to 50% of the employee’s wages from state taxes by hiring people who fit certain criteria, Villarreal said. Those qualified employees include ex-offenders but also veterans and those on certain federal programs.

Tags: Oakland enterprise zone

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 4:36 am and is filed under Enterprise Zones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.