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NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

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Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#141

Post by peteretep »

NoblePublius wrote: post #138
chiefalchemist wrote: post #131

Let's be clear, the free market this is not. It's yet another perfect example of government gone wild. It's one thing for to use taxpayer monies to create jobs and job opportunity (i.e., education). That's a reasonable expectation within the scope of gov's governing. However, it's another thing for gov to buy jobs - and thus votes - by effectively subsidizing some mega-corporation. If Amazon needs money, that's what…

Literally the opposite. The tax gains out number the tax breaks 3 to 1. Each one of these $150k jobs will net NY state $13.8k of income tax per year and (at least) $2500 of sales tax. The tax break per job is $4800 per year (the $48k figure you may have seen is over ten years).

Plus the construction spend + attracting tech people et al

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#142

Post by ajeet_dhaliwal »

NoblePublius wrote: post #138
chiefalchemist wrote: post #131

Let's be clear, the free market this is not. It's yet another perfect example of government gone wild. It's one thing for to use taxpayer monies to create jobs and job opportunity (i.e., education). That's a reasonable expectation within the scope of gov's governing. However, it's another thing for gov to buy jobs - and thus votes - by effectively subsidizing some mega-corporation. If Amazon needs money, that's what…

Literally the opposite. The tax gains out number the tax breaks 3 to 1. Each one of these $150k jobs will net NY state $13.8k of income tax per year and (at least) $2500 of sales tax. The tax break per job is $4800 per year (the $48k figure you may have seen is over ten years).

Still not free market though.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#143

Post by kodablah »

DevKoala wrote: post #66
vdnkh wrote: post #32

1) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given. 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not. 3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and te…

Thank you, this is a good list of clear benefits. I have yet to see such a document that states in an objective manner the negative impact, it's all assumptions.

To be fair, predicting unquantifiable future growing pains will always be presented as an assumption. Also, whether something is a negative impact or not is rarely objective. So asking for contrarian debate on negative impact to be objective is unfair. But yes, there are clear, quantifiable benefits to economic growth.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#144

Post by chrisseaton »

munk-a wrote: post #140
chrisseaton wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just money is it? It's also things like infrastructure they'll provide? Could that possibly make Amazon more efficient, and so employ more people who spend their salaries and so on, creating a net gain for the whole US?

This is a pretty weak point, essentially "Lets give that guy money, he might do good things with it, he's done good things with it in the past." except instead of being a personal investment this concerns tax payer money being funneled to a private corporation. They'd be much better spending that money on their neglected public transit or their neglected public housing...

> They'd be much better spending that money on their neglected public transit or their neglected public housing...

But some cities were suggesting that! They were going to invest in infrastructure, knowing that the extra income from Amazon in the area would pay for it. It was not a zero-sum game.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#145

Post by somethingwitty1 »

Roritharr wrote: post #65
del82 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? I mean, you can argue against tax incentives for corporations, but you can also argue for them. For example, you could say (as others in this thread have) that $48k per job over 10 years is a good investment, and will likely generate much more than that in economic activity. How is it evil?

To me it is evil in the sense that this is taking advantage of the public interest. For the community on a pure economic sense this might be seen as a good investment, but these kinds of tax incentives just further set apart the position of smaller companies and large corporates. Imagine a mom&pop bakery with a 20year history receiving a comparable pile of money per job created, soon enough they wouldn't be small any…

You'd likely need to look at the local tax laws to state that they aren't getting similar incentives. I'm not in NYC, but I can speak to where I live and many of the laws, obligations and even taxes that apply to an Amazon-size corporation, do not apply to a mom & pop. For example, food labeling/testing is required (not cheap) for larger corporations. Healthcare options and covered sick days is tied to size of your corporation (again, not cheap). There are also numerous loans and incentives for smaller corporations that the bigger companies aren't eligible for.

I'm not trying to paint this as being equal, but to call it evil is a gross mischaracterization of what is happening here.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#146

Post by akhilcacharya »

edoo wrote: post #56

Going to New York is a political move. They could have set up in the midwest, paid everyone 75% as much as the going rate in NY or silicon valley, and the employees would have 50% more expendable income than they are used to. This wasn't for the employees.

> They could have set up in the midwest, paid everyone 75% as much as the going rate in NY or silicon valley, and the employees would have 50% more expendable income than they are used to. This wasn't for the employees.

SDE's in Detroit, Madison, and Twin Cities are paid exactly the same as the SDEs in Seattle.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#147

Post by longerthoughts »

boomka wrote: post #61
rb808 wrote: post #7

This is such a great deal for NYC As the article says, they give up $1.5B over 10 years, but then get "Projected incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over 20 years." I dont know where that comes from but the payroll and property taxes paid by 25k employees dwarves the incentives. The most important part is it cements NYC as the main tech center on the East Coast. That is invaluable. EDIT: I wonder if NYC…

I don't know who you are referring to as NYC, but citizens of USA as a whole are worse off. Pitting one USA municipality against another to extract subsidy for what Amazon would do anyways is just another mechanism for wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.

> just another mechanism for wealth transfer from the poor to the rich

I'm not sure this type of competition is a great thing for citizens, but is this really a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich? Doesn't most tax revenue in the US come from the rich, meaning they're covering most of the bill? In that case it would be more like wealth transfer from rich people to rich companies with some of that wealth making its way back to a subset of rich people and companies (i.e. investors).

I'm sure there are secondary effects impacting the poor but I'm not sure it's as simple as mean rich people reaching into the pockets of the poor - there's not enough money there for it to be a compelling strategy.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#148

Post by chiefalchemist »

asah wrote: post #127
CPLX wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. New York City doesn't have a problem attracting jobs. Like not even a little bit. The idea that this is actually incremental revenue for the city is extremely debatable. New York City is a really big place. Midtown is the largest central business district in the country, and Lower Manhattan is the third largest, after Chicago. There are 1,700,000 jobs in Manhattan alone and 3,900,000 in New York City…

My god, you're bitter for a startup founder! As a veteran founder myself, I'd be excited: this brings talent to fuel my startup, this brings interactive infrastructure, etc. Amazon and Google are not regular employers: your startup pays outlets in taxes and mooches off infrastructure. The big companies find that with real profits. Finally, $48k/employee is peanuts to a big city startup, and typically that kind of mon…

> " this brings talent to fuel my startup,"

Yes it brings talent. But that doesn't mean such people are startup talent.

It's also going to drive up demand for housing (read: the cost of housing). So for those __not__ employed by one of these, the question becomes: how much __startup-centric__ talent are they driving __out__ of your area?

Long to short, the market is being manipulated, and it's being manipulated by the government. The gov created the house bubble and the student loan bubble. If there are examples of the gov manipulating the market and that ending well for taxpayers, I'd like to read about it.

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#149

Post by nerdponx »

NoblePublius wrote: post #138
chiefalchemist wrote: post #131

Let's be clear, the free market this is not. It's yet another perfect example of government gone wild. It's one thing for to use taxpayer monies to create jobs and job opportunity (i.e., education). That's a reasonable expectation within the scope of gov's governing. However, it's another thing for gov to buy jobs - and thus votes - by effectively subsidizing some mega-corporation. If Amazon needs money, that's what…

Literally the opposite. The tax gains out number the tax breaks 3 to 1. Each one of these $150k jobs will net NY state $13.8k of income tax per year and (at least) $2500 of sales tax. The tax break per job is $4800 per year (the $48k figure you may have seen is over ten years).

That's fair, but how much of that will go towards compensating people who will be driven out of north/west Queens and north Brooklyn as a result of rising rents?

Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job

#150

Post by peteretep »

konschubert wrote: post #62
rb808 wrote: post #7

This is such a great deal for NYC As the article says, they give up $1.5B over 10 years, but then get "Projected incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over 20 years." I dont know where that comes from but the payroll and property taxes paid by 25k employees dwarves the incentives. The most important part is it cements NYC as the main tech center on the East Coast. That is invaluable. EDIT: I wonder if NYC…

A better deal would have been not paying 48K per job and still getting Amazon to NYC. An equally good deal would have been not paying 48K and getting Amazon elsewhere in the US. I mean, not for NYC, but for the US as a whole it would have been equally good. The race to the bottom is lined with "good deals"...

> A better deal would have been not paying 48K per job and still getting Amazon to NYC.

And an even better one would have been free ponies for all and rainbow shitting dinosaurs. Also wasn’t on the table, however.

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