Friday, December 19, 2025
Three Things to Know: August 29th
This week's information compiled by your SC Chamber team includes:
SC Chamber Testifies on Business Personal Property Taxes, Myrtle Beach Area Golf Industry Has $1.6 Billion Economic Impact, Introducing our Workforce Development Symposium Keynote Speaker
1. SC Chamber Testifies on Business Personal Property Taxes
This week, the SC Chamber convened a group of business advocates, business owners, and tax professionals to testify before the House Economic Development and Utility Modernization Ad Hoc Committee on the harmful impact of business personal property (BPP) taxes on small businesses.
In South Carolina, businesses pay a 10.5% personal property tax on the value of everything they own and use to conduct their business. Every waiting room sofa, office desk, computer, cash register, copier, walk-in cooler, etc. must be itemized and accounted for — at the owner’s expense — before the business owner pays personal property taxes on them. For example, a small bakery that purchased a new $8,500 bread oven would pay the county they do business in over $465 each year simply for the right to own something necessary to conduct its business. What’s worse? This tax is on top of the sales tax that they already paid when they first bought the equipment.
Committee members heard how these taxes are a compliance headache for business owners, as they require detailed annual tracking and reporting on every depreciable asset a business owns. Plus, no business is taxed the same as the amount owed differs based on the county in which the business operates. They also deter businesses from investing back into their operations to better serve their customers as, unlike most states across the country, business personal property in South Carolina can be taxed forever as items cannot be fully depreciated.
Lastly, committee members heard how South Carolina is an outlier on these taxes relative to other states in the Southeast as states like Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Texas all have exemptions that reduce the financial burden on small businesses.
House lawmakers are working to identify solutions on how to minimize the impact of BPP taxes on small business in the lead up to the 2026 legislative session. One bill, H.3358, would exempt the first $10,000 of a business’s personal property (BPP) from taxation and exempt small businesses with less than $10,000 in BPP from burdensome reporting requirements.
2. Myrtle Beach Area Golf Industry Has $1.6 Billion Economic Impact
This week, the first economic impact study of the Myrtle Beach Area’s golf market revealed just how much “The Golf Capital of the World” contributes to the region and the state as a driver of economic activity.
The study found that the total economic impact of the area’s golf industry was roughly $1.6 billion in 2024, with a direct economic impact of nearly $1.1 billion. The industry supported 13,340 jobs, generating $482.9 million in wages and benefits. It also contributed $134.8 million in state and local taxes.
The Myrtle Beach area golf market includes 78 golf courses at 69 different facilities, which hosted an estimated 3.02 million rounds of golf, or approximately 37,000 rounds per 18 holes, last year.
In 2024, an estimated 759,000 golfers traveled more than 50 miles to play the region’s courses to the tune of 1.4 million rounds. This out-of-town spending on lodging, dining, transportation and entertainment contributed more than $705 million directly into the local economy and supported more than 7,300 tourism-related jobs.
The study was conducted in collaboration with the National Golf Foundation, Golf Tourism Solutions, the Myrtle Beach Area Golf Course Owners Association, and the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism (SCPRT), and focused on three key industries—golf facility revenue, capital investments, and golf tourism—as the primary drivers of economic impact.
Learn more about the study here.
3. Introducing our Workforce Development Symposium Keynote Speaker
Kechi Kwizera leads the Bank of America national workforce development strategy and execution across nearly 100 local markets. The bank’s workforce development efforts are centered on creating talent pipelines to livable-wage jobs, leading to social and economic mobility in low-to-moderate income communities. Prior to this role, Kechi served as a Bank of America Leader on Loan for Unity Point Health (UPH), as the System Strategy Executive. In this role, Kechi centralized workforce development efforts across the system, spearheading the development and implementation of UPH’s Enterprise Career Pathways division.
Kechi joined Bank of America in 2017, supporting the Global Real Estate (GRES) Client Strategy division. At the onset of the global pandemic, she assumed additional responsibilities leading efforts in global pandemic response and managing the bank’s two largest enterprise critical vendors.
Dedicated to deepening community impact, Kechi serves as a member of the BofA Dallas/Fort Worth Market Advisory Council, and a Sector Champion for the DFW Business & Finance Workforce Partnership. Kechi is committed to driving global volunteerism and is an active member of her community. She has received the bronze and silver US Presidents Volunteer Service Award and is a member of the National Charity League.
Kechi graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from Manchester University, and earned her MBA and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, also cum laude from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Based in Frisco, Texas, she is a wife, and a mother of two lovely daughters.