Iowa's handout to Apple illustrates the folly of corporate welfare deals

Post by acjohnson55 » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 4:55 AM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #91

fulafel wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are supposed to pay taxes so we can have schools, healthcare, basic income etc. When they bid countries or states against each other to get tax breaks and governments play the game, citizens lose. Yes, it happens in other cases too, and citizens should also protest against those other cases.

A corporation is purely a legal notion. In real life, when you shake down a corporation so that "we" can have nice stuff, you are shaking down that corporation's shareholders, employees, and customers. These folks already paid their fair share of income and sales taxes. And they can also be referred to using a first-person pronoun.

Post by bb88 » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 4:59 AM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #22

Basically it's, would you like to have $0 in taxes paid by Apple (by assuming they won't come to Iowa if they aren't given a discount), or would you like $76 million in taxes and $100 million in public improvement funds that will mainly benefit Apple? 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…

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 5:07 AM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #47

colechristensen wrote: post #24

These are property tax abatements. I don't see the big deal. Apple has to pay the property tax equal to the farmland for the next 20 years instead of the much higher tax on the datacenter property. Who cares? Unless someone is arguing the datacenter is going to use a lot of tax funded city services (police? fire? ... ?), Waukee isn't giving Apple anything. On top of that Apple is pledging to give them $100M for vario…

Yes, anyone can use that. If you buy a bunch of property, just plant trees and get the state / city to come out and verify that you are growing trees and your property taxes are 1/10th of what they were. Trees are probably the lowest maintenance crop you can grow, and the property might already have them. We had a family that owned a LOT of land in our city put a few cows on it to save money on property taxes.

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 5:09 AM UTC

Larrikin wrote: post #107

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with states competing with each other. If one state has poor schools then companies won't want to be there because they won't be able to find competent employees. If one state has no government healthcare subsidies then employees there will demand higher wages so they can pay for healthcare. The states that have better schools and more subsidies will have correspondingly higher taxes. The only…

A large corporation like Apple getting a tax cut allows Apple to pay the relocation costs of engineers and other employees. Those sames engineers are putting off children to later or not having them at all. A group that also switches jobs frequently. So long as Apple has some trendy locations people will be happy to work there and the schools won't even be a consideration for most.

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 5:14 AM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #91

fulafel wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are supposed to pay taxes so we can have schools, healthcare, basic income etc. When they bid countries or states against each other to get tax breaks and governments play the game, citizens lose. Yes, it happens in other cases too, and citizens should also protest against those other cases.

A corporation is purely a legal notion. In real life, when you shake down a corporation so that "we" can have nice stuff, you are shaking down that corporation's shareholders, employees, and customers. These folks already paid their fair share of income and sales taxes. And they can also be referred to using a first-person pronoun.