Utah Tax Credit for Employing a Recently Deployed Veteran

This credit goes to the employer. It is in this catalog because it is a reason for an employer to hire you, and because the paperwork it requires is paperwork you can help assemble. Who is a "recently deployed veteran". Section 59-10-1031, subsection 1: an individual who "was mobilized to active federal military service" in an active or reserve component of the United States Armed Forces, and "received an honorable or general discharge from active federal military service under Subsection (1)(a) within the two-year period before the date the employment begins." Two things follow. The service must have been a mobilisation to active federal service, so this does not reach a Guard member who only ever drilled. And the two-year clock runs from discharge to the start of the job, so the window closes two years after separation. What the employer must show about you. Subsection 2 requires that the veteran, at the time of hiring, either "is collecting or is eligible to collect unemployment benefits under Title 35A, Chapter 4, Part 4" or "within the last two years, has exhausted the unemployment benefits" under that part. So the credit targets an unemployed or recently unemployed veteran. A veteran who walks straight from service into a job without ever touching unemployment insurance does not generate the credit. And what you must then do. Subsection 2, paragraph (b): the veteran "works for the claimant, estate, or trust at least 35 hours per week for not less than 45 of the 52 weeks following the recently deployed veteran's start date for the employment." Thirty-five hours is the floor, and seven weeks of the year can fall short without breaking it. The amounts, from subsection 3. For the first taxable year the credit is "$200 for each month of employment not to exceed $2,400 for the taxable year for each recently deployed veteran". For the second taxable year it is "$400 for each month of employment not to exceed $4,800 for the taxable year". So the two-year total per veteran is up to $7,200, and the second year is worth twice the first, which is a retention incentive rather than a hiring bonus. The credit is claimed "beginning in the year the requirements of Subsection (2) are met", which means the employer cannot claim until the 45-of-52-weeks condition has been satisfied. Carryforward. Subsection 6 allows the employer to carry the credit forward for up to five taxable years where it exceeds the year's liability. That is more generous than the military retirement credit, which allows none. The records the employer must keep, which is the practical part. Subsection 4 requires the employer to retain, for each veteran claimed: the veteran's name, taxpayer identification number, last known address and employment start date; documentation establishing the hours and weeks worked; "documentation provided by the recently deployed veteran's military service unit establishing that the recently deployed veteran is a recently deployed veteran"; and "a signed statement from the Department of Workforce Services that the recently deployed veteran meets the requirements of Subsection (2)(a) regarding unemployment benefits." That last item is the one that stops employers. The signed Workforce Services statement about your unemployment benefit status is something you can request and hand over. If you are job-hunting within two years of a mobilised discharge and you have an unemployment claim, getting that statement in advance and mentioning the credit turns an abstraction into something an employer can act on. The credit is also described on the Department of Workforce Services and income tax websites, and the Department of Veterans and Military Affairs points employers to it. Subsection 5 lets the Tax Commission demand the subsection 4 records from the employer. One limit worth stating because the name obscures it: nothing in the section requires the deployment to have been to a combat zone or a hazardous area, and nothing requires a disability. The conditions are a mobilisation to active federal service, an honorable or general discharge within two years, and the unemployment benefit link. The section has not been amended since it was enacted by chapter 306 of the 2012 general session, so the $200 and $400 figures have not moved in fourteen years and are not indexed.