21–30 of 242 posts
Some property tax revenues or no property tax revenues?
A silly race to the bottom.
But it proves the asymmetric negotiation power Apple has compared to constituents. Apple is in a position to say, take it or leave it. And the constituents can't really do that, for them to move elsewhere is much more expensive, for possibly not much of a gain. So basically Apple gets a significant advantage because local officials are looking at money rather than fairness. Why doesn't everyone get the same discount? Oh well, that wouldn't work would it?
It also shows that at scale the property taxes are possibly too high. Which means the property taxes in general are probably too high. But now, because of this "deal", the constituents have even less negotiating power to get their taxes lowered, because the local government sold them out, and now depends on their taxes even more seeing as they can't raise Apple's property taxes for 20 years per this deal.
"This puts Iowa on the world stage," Gov. Kim Reynolds
Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, "All eyes are on Iowa for building this technology ecosystem," she said
The handful of eyes that give a crap about this story, will see how far Iowa has debased themselves. Iowa just got its 15 minutes of fame, it's already over, you're not getting anymore out of this deal than what's already happened. Unless of course, you whore yourselves out yet again to another company. That's what you've just advertised, Iowa.
Two perspectives from inside Iowa:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/08/25/7-thi...
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/...
>Apple’s deal with Iowa, which includes about $20 million in a state investment tax credit and a 20-year tax abatement from the city of Waukee worth nearly $190 million, underscores all these elements. Dumb question: how do these deals not violate the Equal Protection Clause? Other businesses in Waukee obviously aren't privy to the same state tax credits from Iowa and the same tax abatement from the city of Waukee. D…
http://taxprof.typepad.com/files/65st0033.pdf
You've piqued my interest here. It does seem a bit strange.
If you do care about it, maybe you should be complaining much more about all of the corporations that are "Delaware" corporations to avoid state taxes instead of being corporations where they're actually located.
Luckily Wisconsin figured out the solution to this problem... Make the corporate welfare deals an order of magnitude larger and give 3 billion to Foxconn instead of a piddly tenth of that. Even in the best case for "jobs created" (10,000) pushed by our politicians the state might as well just give 10,000 people $30,000 a year for 10 years. Realistic estimates are saying the new jobs might be more in the range of 3,00…
This hits home as a Wisconsin resident. Best case scenario, we're looking at 2042 to turn a profit[1]. [1] http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/bill_summaries/2017...
Luckily Wisconsin figured out the solution to this problem... Make the corporate welfare deals an order of magnitude larger and give 3 billion to Foxconn instead of a piddly tenth of that. Even in the best case for "jobs created" (10,000) pushed by our politicians the state might as well just give 10,000 people $30,000 a year for 10 years. Realistic estimates are saying the new jobs might be more in the range of 3,00…
This hits home as a Wisconsin resident. Best case scenario, we're looking at 2042 to turn a profit[1]. [1] http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lfb/bill_summaries/2017...
It's always sold as an investment that will pay off, but in reality it's - In My Cynical Opinion - about local pride.
With an NFL team, Shelbyville becomes a major city, and with an Apple data center Iowa becomes a high tech state. Expensive, sure, but the good things in life aren't free!
Luckily Wisconsin figured out the solution to this problem... Make the corporate welfare deals an order of magnitude larger and give 3 billion to Foxconn instead of a piddly tenth of that. Even in the best case for "jobs created" (10,000) pushed by our politicians the state might as well just give 10,000 people $30,000 a year for 10 years. Realistic estimates are saying the new jobs might be more in the range of 3,00…
I'm a programmer. Every time I go home to Iowa, people try to tell me that Iowa is now a booming tech hub, with Microsoft, Facebook and Apple "offices", and that I should get a job there. I try to explain why I probably won't end up there, but the point is that they are extremely proud of all of these data centers.