The measure said that tax incentives can be given to establishments that will hire Palauans.
The aim of Senate Bill 8-23 is to encourage companies to hire Palauans since there are many jobs requiring specialized skills being filled with non-citizens, in part because training and retaining Palauan workers may be more expensive than hiring ready-trained foreign labor. The tax incentive will provide additional incentives for Palauans to learn skills necessary for various jobs, by bolstering their employment opportunities at the end of the training , “Eligible Employer” means an individual or a corporation engaged in a business, employing one or more qualifying citizen workers, so long as each worker is paid at least twice the minimum wage prevailing throughout the period for which tax credits are requested, and each worker for which tax credit is sought works a minimum of 30 hours weekly. For each Qualifying Citizen Worker employed, an Eligible Employer shall be eligible to claim tax credit, calculated by subtracting 150 percent of the amount paid in salary to each Qualifying Citizen Worker from the gross revenue taxes due under this Section, up to a maximum of $4,000 tax credit per year for each Qualifying Citizen Worker; provided that credits authorized by this subsection shall be limited to a period of five years for each Eligible Employer. The qualifying citizen worker, meanwhile means an individual who, is a citizen of Palau; and, has satisfactorily completed an apprenticeship training program of eight months or more duration, with the Hawaii Job Corps, the CAT Apprenticeship Program, Palau Community College, Guam Community College, any accredited Apprenticeship program in the United States or any other recognized training as may be approved in regulations promulgated by the Bureau of Taxation, in collaboration with the Budget Office, the Division of Labor, the Palau Community College, the Ministry of Education and the Scholarship Board.
