A company considering Warren County for a plant that would provide 2,000 new jobs wants word on tax breaks in advance.

The $200 million project to be on land between U.S. 61 North and the Yazoo River near Blakely got a verbal commitment from Warren County supervisors Wednesday for a substantial assortment of tax exemptions.

The proposal was dubbed &#8220Project Tiger” by the unnamed company and would employ 2,000 people in heavy manufacturing jobs within four years. The company is looking at 15 sites in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, said Jim Pilgrim, executive director of the Warren County Port Commission, who disclosed few specifics to supervisors when making a pitch on the company’s behalf.

Referring to a thin pamphlet of information the company provided on site visits here, Pilgrim told supervisors an answer was required &#8220in seven to 10 days” on a request for free port warehousing within an inventory tax exemption, plus a fee-in-lieu of property taxes for an unspecified period of time.

&#8220They absolutely have to have it. We’re automatically out of the game if not,” Pilgrim said.

Mississippi Development Authority was involved in recruiting the company, as well as Entergy, he said, adding that about 300 to 900 acres were needed, plus access to rail lines.

The tract is just north of where U.S. 61 North and North Washington Street merge.

Pilgrim admitted the company’s goal to have a 2 million-square-foot facility completely built by December 2007 was &#8220pretty ambitious,” but the upside was the number of jobs the company said it would create here.

Combined employment at all four Vicksburg casino hotels is about 2,500. The Nissan plant near Canton employs about 4,000.

The decision to consider the company’s request came after reservations voiced by all four board members present, who said the county would approve the company’s requests with tight strings attached to ensure it actually reaches the benchmarks the project states for jobs and economic impact.

&#8220The only downside is that the only people left to tax are your small businesses and homesteads,” District 5 Supervisor Richard George said, also voicing displeasure with the rest of the board on the scarce amount of information.

&#8220We really don’t know how many jobs they’re really going to have from year to year,” District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon said. &#8220We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

Referencing a multifaceted development in DeSoto County to be among items for the state’s special legislative session beginning today, District 2 Supervisor William Banks, in whose district the proposed site is located, said the promise of thousands of jobs may not translate into economic development down the road.

&#8220We could end up like Tunica County on this one. They have the casinos, but the employees don’t live there,” he said.

The board was undecided whether to take up the issue before the next regular meeting Sept. 5 or to call a special meeting.

The type of business can determine inventory tax calculations and, to a greater degree, the concept of free port warehousing, Deputy Tax Assessor Jim Agent said late Wednesday.

Typically, businesses are taxed on the cost of their industrial inventory as part of their personal property reporting to the county. The penalty for filing after an April 1 deadline is 10 percent, Agent said, adding that if companies do not submit cost totals on their inventory, samples from that particular industry are compiled to estimate one.

A business operating outside city limits with an inventory valued at $1 million would normally pay about $12,500 in inventory taxes. Agent said with a 10-year exemption on it, the bill would be reduced to about $7,400.

Free port warehousing is more complicated to figure, he said, as it depends on whether a company has shipments inside Mississippi or outside the state.

In short, he said, the smaller the percentage of goods shipped inside Mississippi, the more generous the tax break for a company.

Terms of the inventory tax break and fee-in-lieu the company is seeking were also not disclosed. Supervisors have already granted a fee-in-lieu of property taxes to Duke Energy Gas Transmission for a natural gas pipeline through parts of southern Warren County. A second company, Gulf South Pipeline, has asked both the city and county to consider one for their pipeline project.

A possible challenge in building on the Blakely site would be the flood elevation, Pilgrim said. The land dips slowly from the highway to the river in much of the acreage, prompting the need for some type of levee to be built to protect it from major flooding.

Project Tiger was one of 11 companies to make site visits somewhere in Warren County or do some level of follow-up work on prior visits. One of them was a product distribution center that Pilgrim described as &#8220a biggie. It’s a real plum.”

&#8220I’m waiting for one of these eggs to hatch,” Pilgrim said.