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Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

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Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#121

Post by 6cd6beb »

rayiner wrote: post #44
minikites wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the choice either. How about no tax breaks for companies, we enforce existing corporate taxes on those companies, and we raise the marginal income tax rate on very high earning individuals?

At the state and local level, that just means companies will leave your state and go somewhere else. In a globalized world, the same thing is true for countries. There is a reason France has an effective 11% corporate tax rate: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the... (Chart 2). If you want to pay for the safety net, do what Europe does and tax middle class people who can't just move to a lower…

>do what Europe does and tax middle class people who can't just move to a lower-tax jurisdiction

Well, that's why Europe is blanketed in riots right now.

Disenfranchised people enraged at the governing concept of "taxing middle class people who can't just move to a lower-tax jurisdiction"

Taxing the hell out of foreign goods would just mean the company now plays a two pronged game - manufacturing where the least regulation is present, and selling at the country with the highest price point who doesn't outright refuse to let you extract their nation's wealth.

It's a tricky problem but your answer to it is untenable unless you want people to riot more.

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#122

Post by projectramo »

kod wrote: post #66

Their campus location is so far north, it's more like south Dallas than Austin.

Do you know where it is? I can't find any info on the exact location.

I assumed somewhere near Round Rock for the proximity to the old tech workforce but that was just a guess.

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#123

Post by unethical_ban »

rayiner wrote: post #44
minikites wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the choice either. How about no tax breaks for companies, we enforce existing corporate taxes on those companies, and we raise the marginal income tax rate on very high earning individuals?

At the state and local level, that just means companies will leave your state and go somewhere else. In a globalized world, the same thing is true for countries. There is a reason France has an effective 11% corporate tax rate: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the... (Chart 2). If you want to pay for the safety net, do what Europe does and tax middle class people who can't just move to a lower…

Then punish the corporations that abandon countries to avoid taxes.

Life and society is about the people. Corporations shouldn't be respected like people.

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#124

Post by QuotedForTruth »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #120
QuotedForTruth wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the companies get municipalities to compete to provide the best incentives package. With sufficient competition and assuming well meaning, rational government officials, the winning municipality will have to reduce their "margin" (new tax dollars - incentives) down to a very small amount. These incentives often require the government to take out large loans that they will be paying down for decade…

20 years sounds like a reasonable time for the investment to pay off. It's not mindblowingly tremendous, but not a catastrophe either.

Sure, but the city is taking on risk that the business, sports team or factory is still around generating revenue for that entire time and after.

Factories are often purpose built for whatever they will build. Retooling can be very expensive. Why would Foxconn for instance pay to retool their factory from LCD production to OLED or whatever new technology emerges in 10 years when they can just get another government to build them a new factory somewhere else?

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#125

Post by bryanlarsen »

jpadkins wrote: post #26
jacek wrote: post #8

Big corps love to brag about "adding jobs", but don't like to brag about the "tax incentives" they are getting. There are usually huge costs for the whole community. Austin tax incentives for Apple seem to be relatively small [1], but Foxconn factory in Wisconsin is an extreme case. I highly recommend the Replay All podcast episode on this [2][3] [1] https://www.statesman.com/news/20120901/austin-council-oks-8... [2]…

it's weird to frame net new revenue as a "huge cost the whole community" Taking less money from someone who is building a business in your area is not a cost. They have a choice on where to build, and tax burden is one of many factors in that choice.

It's a huge cost to the whole community, if by the "whole community" you mean the entire US.

Let's say that Apple pays municipal tax of $X-$Y to Austin because of incentive $Y instead of $X to Denver (for example)

Then Denver loses $X while Austin gains $X-$Y and Apple gains $Y. Sure, the Denver loss is only theoretical but Apple has to build somewhere so American municipal taxpayers lose as a group. A "race to the bottom" has real costs.

The municipal governments are behaving rationally; it's the federal government who represents all municipalities as a collective; they're the ones who should be passing a law banning this type of behavior.

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#126

Post by moorhosj »

6cd6beb wrote: post #121
rayiner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the state and local level, that just means companies will leave your state and go somewhere else. In a globalized world, the same thing is true for countries. There is a reason France has an effective 11% corporate tax rate: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/07/541797699/fact-check-does-the... (Chart 2). If you want to pay for the safety net, do what Europe does and tax middle class people who can't just move to a lower…

>do what Europe does and tax middle class people who can't just move to a lower-tax jurisdiction Well, that's why Europe is blanketed in riots right now. Disenfranchised people enraged at the governing concept of "taxing middle class people who can't just move to a lower-tax jurisdiction" Taxing the hell out of foreign goods would just mean the company now plays a two pronged game - manufacturing where the least regu…

>Well, that's why Europe is blanketed in riots right now.

Can you provide a source for this claim? I know of the riots in France (a country well known for civil disobedience/riots), but haven't heard of the entire continent being "blanketed".

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#127

Post by throwaway5752 »

Big loss for RTP area in North Carolina which was favored to land it, but got nothing. Guess they pay for the disgraceful performance of the NC General Assembly in the past several years - at least enough that TX tax policies won out.

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#128

Post by sigstoat »

kyrra wrote: post #116
sigstoat wrote: post #107

omitted from the title, but included in the article, is that they're also expanding in boulder colorado. i know that location has been under construction for at least 6 months now. my business was having some construction done, and we kept getting bottom of the barrel subcontractors, because our contractor also has the apple building, and kept sending their good folks over there. :(

Are you sure it's not the Google building too? They have had constant construction for the past 2 years.

i got a location of the building out of the person i was talking to, and it wasn't where google is. i also know the name of the contractor, and it didn't match any of the signage i saw last time i walked past the google construction site.

so... i'm sure. take that for what you will.

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#129

Post by moorhosj »

InitialLastName wrote: post #112
dwighttk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess (e.g) Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Seattle didn’t get the memo. Odd since Seattle and Atlanta recently lost franchises that they’d add new ones if it wasn’t worth it.

I'm a bit lost. What major sports franchise is Atlanta adding? Looking at [0], I see new(ish) soccer, Overwatch and arena football teams, but none of those are really among the "big money" sports in the US, nor do any of those require the sort of support from the city/state that, say, a new NFL stadium would require. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_in_Atlanta

The new Atlanta soccer team, Atlanta United, actually plays in the new NFL stadium that the state spent $1.6 billion to build [1]. Average attendance was 53,000 for Atlanta United this year.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_Stadium

Re: Apple to build campus in Austin and sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City

#130

Post by ralmidani »

I haven't been following the lead-up to this announcement, but it seems to have involved much less fanfare and public drama than Amazon's HQ2 decision did. Bezos insists on squeezing every last drop out of a negotiation (see also: Amazon de-listing hard copies of books while the ebook negotiations are ongoing), so is Apple less malevolent or do they just enjoy more inherent leverage than Amazon does?
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