Noble County grants tax breaks for expanding machining firm

Noble County Council members granted two nine-year tax abatements and one 10-year abatement, which will benefit B&J Medical in Kendallville, B&J Specialty in Wawaka and land-holding company J Wicker Real Estate.

The local manufacturer is continuing to grow and is working to double capacity at both its facilities, plant manager Kerry Leitch told board members.

“We’re planning on employing more people. Everything is still good. They’re backed up on work,” Leitch said.

The three projects include adding $2.9 million of equipment at the B&J Medical facility on U.S. 6, $677,000 in equipment at B&J Specialty, and $1.1 million in new real property for building expansions on J Wicker Real Estate property adjacent to the plants.

Overall, the the company will save approximately $210,000 in taxes over the terms of the abatement.

Tax abatements phase in property taxes over a period of time. For example, a company pays no taxes on the new equipment or buildings in the first year of the abatement, then pays 10 percent in year two, 20 percent in year three and so on until the abatement ends and the company pays full taxes. Abatements typically save firms about half of the taxes that otherwise would be owed.

Noble County Economic Development Corp. requested that the council make all three tax breaks 10-year terms as a small extra incentive to B&J, despite two of the individual projects scoring just below the maximum term.

“If you put all three together into one project, it would easily make the 10-year,” Noble County Economic Development Director Rick Sherck said. “It would be a nice gesture to them to give them that one more year.”

Council member Denise Lemmon said she appreciated the growing company, but said the county’s finances are tight and the council needed to stay disciplined with its guidelines. The council voted unanimously to follow the recommended terms for the tax breaks, putting two of them at nine years.