How can we prevent tax arbitrage?

[srican69]

Corporations and rich individuals play cities/states/countries against each other either by threatening to leave or actually leaving once

they have found a better place to invest...

Shouldn't there be an international treaty that discourages such behavior... The city of Clifton NJ gave extraordinary sops to Roche to stay..they stayed for a while and then left when they got a better deal from New York city...

Why can they get away with it so easily?

I think Republicans are acutely aware of this and always scream 'fed vs states rights' or 'UN vs US'..The threat of a uniform policy will destroy all their arbitrage opportunities and the rich will do anything to protect it.

[SheilaT]

1. It's a very real problem with having fifty

semi-independent states. Until or unless states were to agree with each other to stop indulging in such behavior, it will continue.

It is always most noticeable the way professional sports teams will hold a city hostage for a new stadium, and at various times I have read the there is no net gain from those, because all of the tax concessions are not made up by the relatively few jobs created.

One of the things I like a lot about living in NM is that we have no professional sports teams here at all.

[HiPointDem]

2. good question & i don't know the answer. what i do believe is that a lot of local gov't officials

are getting kickbacks, because those tax holidays for the likes of walmart they're handing out *cost more than the measly jobs they bring*. sometimes way more.

[srican69]

3. its amazing right...

This is what ows needed to highlight...confluence of government and corporations too screw the rest of us...

[oldhippie]

4. If you had a good job in NYC ......

... and then found another job in Conn. which paid the same, or maybe a little more, and you wanted to move to Conn. and buy a house, should the State of NY be able to prohibit you from doing that? Since Conn. has a lower tax rate than NY/NYC, should you have to pay a penalty to NY in order to move to Conn? Should Conn. have to pay a penalty, or some recompense to NY because they are "stealing" one of their assets (oops, I mean citizens.)

How exactly are you going to stop people from moving among the different tax jurisdictions?

[srican69]

5. By making special 'one time' tax incentives for luring corporations illegal..

If a state or a locality can find a sustainable way to keep taxes low - well, power to them ... but trying to use incentives is a race to the bottom.

[HiPointDem]

6. the tax breaks under discussion are special breaks gifted to certain corporations while the general

population and local companies pay higher rates.

so your comparison example is irrelevant.

[oldhippie]

9. The OP included rich individuals ....

.... not just corporations.

[ieoeja]

7. This may have been Reagan's single worst legacy.

He "paid for" slashing federal income taxes by cutting off funds to the states and cities. That forced the states and cities to raise taxes with two results.

First, most states and cities were run by Democrats at the time. They were forced to raise taxes which broke the stranglehold we had on local politics since the Great Republican Depression.

Second, the increased taxes in states and cities were large enough to make tax-shopping an issue. Prior to that, local taxes were not a big enough factor to justify the cost of moving a company. Today, it can be.


United Airlines moved maintenance to Indianapolis for an offered tax exemption. Indiana tax base increased by the jobs that came with them. Illinois tax base decreased by the lost jobs and the lost business. Tax base for the two states combined decreased forcing a greater tax burden on individuals and companies not big enough to be offered tax exemptions.

Boeing moved their HQ to Seattle for the same reason. Illinois gained the jobs. Seattle lost the jobs and the business. Combined, we lost and have to make up for the loss.

This is killing us. The only real solution is to restore pre-Reagan taxes. But, of course, we can't even agree on a 4.5 point raise. A 20 point raise is unthinkable at this moment, even though it is exactly what this country needs.

My parents and everyone else I knew lived on paved roads, and the US was going to the moon. Today, a lot of those paved roads are now rock (my parents' road actually crumbled all the way to dirt during the 80s), and they pretend "we" can not afford Medicare. Sickening.

[srican69]

8. awesome insight into the problem

...This goes back to my point about a strong federal government .... Have the feds control the purse and the policy....and why Republicans hate it/fear it.

Someone needs to bring these points back into the national debate