Amazon Snags $2 Billion in Bribes and Tax Credits From New York and Virginia

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This links to an article in Reason magazine. You are not required to read it. Despite your objection, others might want want to read it. I'm leaving that decision to them. If they do make that choice, I'll bet it doesn't hurt you at all.

But what would I know? I'm just one of the taxpayers who will be required to pick up the tab for this.

mahatmakanejeeves

WhatCouldGoWrongHat Retweeted

Wow,
@amazon
snagged $2 billion in handouts from New York and Virginia. This is cronyism, folks, and shouldn't be happening

Link to tweet

Yes but it would have been $2.75 billion if we didn't have a Prime membership, so I think we did pretty well.

Link to tweet

Amazon Snags $2 Billion in Bribes and Tax Credits From New York and Virginia

But Amazon's decision to put it's new headquarters in Arlington and Queens also shows it wasn't all about the money.

Eric Boehm|Nov. 13, 2018 1:50 pm

Amazon is getting some prime real estate. ... In exchange for more than $2 billion in economic incentives, the online shopping giant will locate a pair of new corporate headquarters just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., and just across the East River from Manhattan. Tuesday's much-anticipated announcement of the locations for Amazon's "HQ2" also included details—which had previously been kept from the public—about the economic incentives that successfully lured the Seattle-based firm to the east coast's political and economic hubs.

Amazon says it will invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs across the two new locations, with at least 25,000 employees at each of its new corporate campuses, to be located in Virginia's Crystal City and New York's Long Island City. Nashville wins a consolation prize: a new supply chain and logistics center that promises 5,000 jobs in exchange for $102 million in economic incentives.

In New York, Amazon will receive $1.2 billion in refundable tax credits through a state-level economic development program and a cash grant of $325 million that's tied to the construction of new buildings at the Long Island City location over the next 10 years. In Virginia, the state is ponying up $573 million in tax breaks tied to the creation of 25,000 jobs, and the city of Arlington will provide a cash grant of $23 million over 15 years funded by an existing tax on hotel rooms.

Yes, the numbers are staggering—New York state's pledge of $1.52 billion for 25,000 jobs works out to more than $60,000 in taxpayer support per new job created—but Amazon appears to have selected New York and the D.C. area based on more than just how many zeroes local officials agreed to put on the giant cardboard check. ... After all, New Jersey offered Amazon $5 billion (with another $2 billion from Newark), and Maryland offered $8.5 billion. Yet Amazon passed them both over to pick their neighbors.
....

Eric Boehm is a reporter at Reason.

[Autumn]

1. Will they also get to keep their employees state taxes deducted from their pay checks?

I know of some companies in our state that got to keep them.

[RussBLib]

2. I heard diBlasio defend the deal this morning on Morning Joe

He said it was a "9-for-1" deal, meaning for every dollar in incentive, the city would get $9 in benefits. Sounds like a decent deal, I think. They will have to add a few more trains!

But really, does Amazon need incentives? The biggest company in the world, run by the richest man in the world? Need more corporate welfare?

[marehare]

3. Coporate welfare for Amazon

So NY and Va have bankrupted their citizens by giving Super Rich Bezos a tax break on our backs so he can continue to bankrupt small business with us taxed more to allow him to do this. Bezos is richest man in world and doesn't need even one cent of tax help. Why would you even give him money when you have citizens homeless and starving. How much does Bezos need???
For such a huge tax break, I think voters should have had a say in this with a ballot measure asking them if they supported giving Bezos the richest man in world, another tax break.