Employment expansion; how determined

(1) A taxpayer shall be deemed to have new equivalent employees when the new equivalent employees hired during a taxable year are in addition to the number of total equivalent employees in the taxable year preceding the date of application.

(2) Qualifying business employees who work within and without this state shall be considered only to the extent they are paid for work performed within this state.

(3) The hours worked by any person considered an independent contractor or the employee of another taxpayer shall not be used in the computation under this section.