A search for funding in economic development, housing or film returns a lot of programs whose names end in “tax credit.” They sit in the results next to ordinary grants, sorted by the same award column, and they get added to pipelines the same way.
They should not be. A grant is money the funder sends you. A tax credit is a reduction in what somebody pays the state, and that is only the same thing as money if there is somebody, somewhere, who owes the state enough to use it. Sometimes that somebody is you. Sometimes it is an investor or a donor you have not met yet, and finding them is your job, not the agency’s.
Ten open records indexed on OpenGrants show how far apart those cases sit — and that the distance is not visible in the award figure.
The Short Answer
A tax credit becomes money only when someone with tax liability claims it. Refundable credits and cash grants need nobody to owe anything. Nonrefundable credits need you to owe. Syndicated credits need an outside investor or donor to owe, and converting them into project cash is the recipient’s work, at a discount.
The Grid
| Program | Instrument | Whose liability is required |
|---|---|---|
| Texas Moving Image Incentive (TX) | Cash grant on eligible spend | Nobody’s |
| CA Sales Tax Exclusion (CA) | Tax never charged | Nobody’s |
| Excelsior Jobs Program (NY) | Fully refundable credits | Nobody’s |
| Nebraska Biodiesel Credit (NE) | Nonrefundable credit | Yours |
| California Competes (CA) | Income tax credit | Yours |
| NH CDFA Tax Credit Program (NH) | Credits sold to businesses | A NH business’s |
| Illinois Affordable Housing Credit (IL) | Donor credit, transferred | A donor’s |
| Ohio 9% LIHTC (OH) | Allocation exchanged for equity | An investor’s |
| Rhode Island State LIHTC (RI) | Credits sold or redeemed | An investor’s, or the State’s |
| Illinois Film Production Credit (IL) | Transferable credit | Yours or a buyer’s |
Every figure and phrase below comes off the indexed record for the program named.
When Nobody Has to Owe Anything
Three of these behave, from the recipient’s side, like ordinary funding — and it is worth seeing why, because the reason is structural rather than generous.
The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, run by the Texas Film Commission, is the cleanest case: per the record, qualifying film, television, commercial, animation, visual effects, video game and extended reality productions receive a cash grant based on a percentage of the project’s eligible Texas expenditures, including eligible wages paid to Texas residents. Grants vary by budget level and production type, and are issued upon completion of a review of the project’s Texas spend. No tax return is involved at any point. The state reviews what you spent and sends money.
New York’s Excelsior Jobs Program gets to a similar place by a different route. Per the record it offers five fully refundable tax credits to firms in targeted industries — biotechnology, high-tech, clean-technology, manufacturing, financial services, agriculture — that create and maintain net new jobs or make significant investments in New York. “Fully refundable” is the load-bearing word: a refundable credit larger than your liability is paid out as a refund rather than wasted, so a company with no New York tax bill still collects. The program is open enrollment, and the record is explicit that applicants must submit an annual performance report demonstrating achievement of the job and investment requirements. The credits are not a one-time event; they are re-earned each year against reported performance.
California’s Sales and Use Tax Exclusion, administered by CAEATFA through the State Treasurer’s Office, avoids the question by removing a tax rather than granting a credit against one. Per the record, eligible manufacturers planning to build a new facility or expand or upgrade an existing one may apply for an STE award, and if approved, their purchases of Qualified Property are not subject to state and local sales and use tax. Qualified Property is defined by use: processing recycled feedstock or using it to make another product or soil amendment, advanced manufacturing, or manufacturing alternative source products or advanced transportation technologies.
The benefit lands at the cash register, not at filing, and requires no income tax position at all. What it does require is that you were going to make large qualifying purchases anyway: an exclusion is worth exactly the tax on what you buy. The record lists no dollar figure. For the value, see the listing.
When You Have to Owe
Two records run the ordinary version, where the credit offsets your own bill and stops there.
The Nebraska Biodiesel Tax Credit Program provides, per the record, a nonrefundable income tax credit to organizations producing biodiesel in the state. Nonrefundable means the credit can reduce your tax to zero and no further; anything beyond your liability does not arrive as cash. For a producer in an expansion year — heavy capital spending, thin or negative taxable income — that is the difference between an incentive and a notation.
Two more numbers belong in any plan built on this program. Total credits the Department of Revenue can approve are capped at $1,000,000 for FY25 and $1,500,000 for each fiscal year thereafter, and the program is set to sunset on December 31, 2029. The first is a cap on the program, not on you — you compete against every other producer’s claim for room under an annual ceiling. The second is a date after which the incentive is scheduled to stop existing, which matters for any project whose timeline runs into the end of the decade.
The California Competes Tax Credit, administered by GO-Biz, is an income tax credit for businesses relocating to, staying in, or growing in California. Per the record, applications are accepted online at calcompetes.ca.gov during specified application periods each fiscal year — so unlike most of the programs here, this one has windows rather than a rolling door, and missing one means waiting for the next. The only allocation figure the record carries is historical: a total of $236,808,527 available across three application periods in FY 2019-2020. For the current round’s allocation and dates, see the listing.
When a Stranger Has to Owe
Here the instrument stops resembling a grant at all. Four records award something that is not money and not usable by the recipient, and hand the recipient the job of converting it.
New Hampshire’s CDFA Tax Credit Program states the mechanism plainly. Per the record, CDFA provides tax credit equity to eligible organizations for projects serving a public benefit and public purpose in New Hampshire. Businesses with New Hampshire tax liability then purchase the awarded credits — that purchase is the donation the nonprofit or municipality actually receives — and the business gets a 75% New Hampshire state tax credit applicable against the Business Profits Tax, the Business Enterprise Tax, or the Insurance Premium Tax.
Read the order of operations. A nonprofit wins this award and has, at that moment, nothing spendable. It has permission to offer New Hampshire businesses a 75-cent state tax reduction for every dollar they donate. Whether the project gets funded depends on a sales process the organization runs itself, against a buyer pool defined by a specific set of state taxes. An organization whose board has no relationships with New Hampshire business taxpayers has won a materially different award than one whose board is made of them.
Two more details shape the arithmetic. Per the record, funded projects must address development or redevelopment of target areas or populations, economic development of the state, retention or increase of primary employment, or affordable housing for low- and moderate-income people — and a 20% set-aside from each award supports program administration, statewide investments, technical assistance and CDFA operations. The award figure is not listed, and the amount you can raise is not the amount you were awarded.
The Illinois Affordable Housing Tax Credit, administered by the Illinois Housing Development Authority, adds a second step. Per the record, donors of qualified donations receive a one-time credit against Illinois state income tax equal to 50% of the donation’s value — so the credit is issued to the donor, not to the project. The donor can then transfer those credits to the project sponsor, which creates additional project financing through syndication of the credits.
The sponsor is therefore downstream of two independent decisions by other people: a donor’s decision to give, and a donor’s decision to hand over the resulting credit rather than use it. Neither is inside the sponsor’s control, and neither is scheduled.
Ohio’s 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, administered by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, is the version most developers already know, and the record is a useful reminder of what the instrument is: per the record, LIHTC is an indirect federal incentive that provides investors with a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal tax liability in exchange for equity investment, which is what keeps rents affordable. The listing carries an amount of up to $18,000,000 and a deadline of September 17, 2026 — the only near-term date among these ten records. It also carries the long tail: LIHTC-financed developments must keep units rent-restricted and available to low-income tenants for at least 30 years.
A developer awarded an allocation has not been given $18 million. It has been given something to trade to an investor for equity, at whatever price the equity market sets that quarter, in exchange for a thirty-year use restriction on the building.
The Two Records That Price the Conversion
Most programs leave the cost of converting credits into cash unstated. Two of these do not, and they are the most useful records in the set for exactly that reason.
Rhode Island’s State LIHTC Program, run by the Department of Housing with RIHousing, announced a first competitive round awarding up to $30 million to close financing gaps in projects that are also receiving Federal LIHTCs at 4% or 9%. Per the record, credits are provided in equal increments over five years after the project is placed in service, and may be sold to an investor or redeemed by the State for 90% of the value.
That last clause is unusual and worth sitting with. The state has published a floor price for its own credit: if you cannot find a buyer, it will take the credit back at ninety cents on the dollar. Both halves are information. The floor removes the risk of holding a credit nobody wants — and it tells you what the state thinks the conversion is worth, which is not one hundred percent. The increment schedule adds a second constraint: the credit arrives after the building is placed in service, in fifths, which is a different financing problem from a lump sum at closing.
The record also sets threshold criteria — timely, complete, electronic submission; a concurrent or prior Federal LIHTC award; financial feasibility — and scores applications across Increase Production of Affordable Housing (15 points), Readiness to Proceed (15 points), Serving Vulnerable Populations (10 points) and State LIHTC Effective Leveraging (10 points).
The Illinois Film Production Tax Credit prices conversion the other way — by making the credit portable and giving you time. Per the record, producers receive a credit of 30% of all qualified Illinois production expenditures, including post-production and labor, plus an additional 15% on salaries paid to individuals living in economically disadvantaged areas. The credit is transferable and can be carried forward for five years.
Transferability is what makes this usable by a production company with no Illinois tax bill: the credit can be sold. The carryforward is the alternative for a company that expects liability later and would rather wait than discount. Set it beside Texas, which funds the same industry with a cash grant issued after a spend review, and the two are doing the same economic work through instruments that put very different demands on the recipient’s balance sheet.
What the Award Column Is Actually Denominated In
Across these ten records, the number in the award field means at least four different things. For Texas, it is cash the state will send after reviewing your expenditures. For Ohio and Rhode Island, it is a quantity of credits to be exchanged with a third party — at a price the record leaves open in Ohio’s case and floors at 90% in Rhode Island’s. For Nebraska, the published figures are program-wide ceilings and a sunset date, not an applicant’s award. For New Hampshire, the award is a licence to raise a donation from a particular class of taxpayer, minus a 20% set-aside.
Four of the ten list no amount at all — an honest reflection of instruments whose value depends on facts the listing cannot know: what you buy, what you owe, what an investor pays.
Four Questions to Ask of Any Program Named “Tax Credit”
Is it refundable? Refundable means a credit larger than your liability is paid out. Nonrefundable means it is capped by what you owe. Excelsior says fully refundable. Nebraska says nonrefundable. That single word decides whether a pre-revenue or loss-making organization can use the program at all.
Is it transferable, and does anyone commit to buying? Illinois film credits are transferable with a five-year carryforward. Rhode Island’s may be sold to an investor or redeemed by the State at 90% of value. Ohio’s are exchanged with investors for equity at market price. Transferability without a buyer is not liquidity.
Whose liability does it attack? Yours, a donor’s, an investor’s, or a specific set of state business taxes, as with New Hampshire’s Business Profits Tax, Business Enterprise Tax and Insurance Premium Tax. If the answer is not yours, the conversion work is yours, and it belongs in the project plan as a task with an owner.
When does it arrive, and for how long are you bound? Rhode Island’s credits come in five equal annual increments after the project is placed in service. Ohio’s carry a 30-year affordability restriction. Excelsior requires an annual performance report to keep earning. The award date and the date the money is usable are rarely the same date, and the obligation usually outlasts both.
The Bottom Line
Tax-denominated awards are not a lesser form of funding — several of the largest figures in this set are attached to them. They are a different instrument, and the difference shows up in one question the listing will not answer for you: who has to owe tax before this turns into money, and what will it cost to get it there?
Ask that before a credit program goes into the pipeline next to an ordinary grant. If the answer is “an investor we have not identified,” that is not a reason to skip the program. It is a workstream, and it wants a name and a date next to it.
You can find these programs alongside conventional funding on our economic development grants hub, the small business grants hub, and the federal grants hub, and look up the agencies running them in the funder directory. Deadlines and instruments both change; the Ohio 9% round above closes on September 17, 2026, so verify every figure against the official listing before you build a budget on it.
Want the full record — instrument, deadline, eligibility and listing link — on programs like these? Start a free 7-day trial at ops.opengrants.io.