Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#951

Post by mcny » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #932

codyb wrote: post #898

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? If Amazon wanted a strong transportation system they could have demanded some of their tax break went towards that. They did not. NYC is already the second largest tech hub in the nation, as well as a global leader in a wide variety of industries. If anything, Amazon moving in, and this I doubt, would have made it less affordable than it already was to live here.

Given the broken nature of the subway in NYC that money would have gone to the state government and been spent on god only knows what boodongles and not on imporving transport in NYC

Even now the upside people are apparently angry at Albany for being too focused on the city. It makes no sense to me. This is clearly not true and yet everyone panders to those people.

NYC population is 08.6M

NYS population is 19.85M

Just the city is forty percent of the population. If you add the surrounding areas, you'll be a majority (I think they'd want things done in the city). How does the city not have better representation in the state assembly? How does upstate keep getting away with swindling the city?

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#952

Post by ionised » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 1:51 PM UTC

jupp0r wrote: post #899

nihonde wrote: post #823

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all the crummy talking points defending Amazon in this situation, the most odious is the idea that regular working New Yorkers lost an opportunity to get good jobs and upgrade their livelihoods. Amazon has an established record of being terrible to its workforce, and any fool knows that the workers in Amazon HQ2 aren’t going to be regular joes in Queens. At best, ordinary New Yorkers had a shot at serving HQ2 exec…

Those 25000 workers would have paid income taxes and property taxes.

And they still will, with different employers that hopefully have a better reputation for the treatment of their employees (and hopefully pay a fair tax contribution).

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#953

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #941

balls187 wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. First, state income tax is exactly that, income tax imposed by the state, and governed by the state. There may be local jurisdictions that impose additional income tax but any savings there would be trivial. While sports are important to the local economy, my understanding is that they are relatively minor at the state level. Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing in…

>Second, LeBron (and other athletes) earn playing income in every jurisdiction they play in, not based solely on the jurisdiction that the team is based in. This means they are responsible for filing taxes in each of these jurisdiction. That’s pretty funny how well settled that area of Law is, and yet again Amazon thinks it’s pretty special in that regard also...historically they haven’t paid those taxes either (stat…

Merchants don't pay sales taxes, they collect them on behalf of the taxing entity. The tax is owed by the consumer to the entity regardless of whether the merchant collects it or not. Amazon was trying to give itself an advantage over physical retailers, but thus had nothing to do with Amazon trying to get out of taxes.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#954

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #887

balls187 wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately I am not an accountant and cannot give you tax advise, however, NJ has a non-resident income tax form, which you may be required to file: https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/taxtables.shtml Edit to add: According to my interpretation of this: https://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/current/1040nr... Assuming your income is over $20,000, you ARE required to file a NJ state tax return. Also, n…

I had a paid remote internship for about 6 months for a Texas company while I lived in Missouri. I had to file a Texas state income tax form, or at least my reading of the law indicated that I had to, and Texas gladly took the money.

From where did you get a form that doesn't exist? Texas has no income tax.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#955

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

fiter wrote: post #870

betterunix2 wrote: post #869

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The kind of people that want to live in New York" includes Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon employees (Amazon has about 5000 employees in NYC already). There is also the financial sector with all those quants and risk managers and whatnot. I am pretty sure Amazon wants to hire people like that but convincing them to move to Nashville won't be easy.

I can't find any numbers, but for comparison, do you know how many Walmart employees live in New York?

Technically, several hundred. I say "technically" because they actually work for wholly-owned subsidiaries.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#956

Post by vonmoltke » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

null000 wrote: post #900

vonmoltke wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it didn't. The vast majority of those incentives were on the table for Amazon, or anyone else, without the theatrics.

Oh, sorry, it was "only" 1/2 a billion that was specially on the table for Amazon (if up thread comments are to be trusted) That's not peanuts.

I never said it was, or that it in itself wasn't a problem. It's far less than $3B though, so anyone talking about billions specifically for Amazon is wrong.

Also, if your problem is large tax breaks for corporations, the focus should be on those programs that make available the other $2.5B available, since any corporation with a similar scale project could get that. Focusing specifically on Amazon distracts from the existence of these programs and whether that existence is a good idea.

As an aside, your snarky tone detracts from your comment and hurts the discourse.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#957

Post by ThirdFoundation » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

ennisthemennis wrote: post #875

humanrebar wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. St. Louis and San Diego both let pro football clubs leave recently.

It's more complicated than just St. Louis and San Diego not wanting to put up money. The owners of the respective teams wanted to move to LA pretty much no matter what, and requested particularly absurd things so they could pretend they tried

I think Oakland would be a better example of a city not caving in to giving to Raiders money to build a stadium...

So Las Vegas gave them a lot of money.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#958

Post by fosco » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

nerdb4itwascool wrote: post #704

untog wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an NYC resident I'm glad my elected officials are "butt hurt" at not being involved in a political process that would affect the city in a large way. If they weren't "butt hurt" they really shouldn't be in their jobs.

I am also an NYC resident and followed this story closely. There was an immediate, knee-jerk reaction from local politicians when the announcement was made, often in the form of protests with plenty of photo ops. It was not about how to work with Amazon and the community to create something that works for everyone. Instead, their message was "WE DON'T WANT THIS, GET OUT NOW!" At the end of the day, this city needs to…

as a New Yorker (1.5 hr drive from Manhattan) this makes me sad.

while there is a low chance I would have worked there I was considering the potential reality of trying it out for a few months and see what their telework policy is (I am currently 99.5% remote)

I was excited about this. I think NYC is losing out in the long run on development/income/more transactions of all kinds which in general is good for the economy.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#959

Post by magduf » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

skh wrote: post #729

chiefalchemist wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Will? He's part of the status quo that laid down the foundation on which Trump build his successful candidacy. That George Will? The old white blowhard? That failure is not Trump's fault, it's Will's & Co. But people like Will don't have the integrity to stand up and be counted. Instead, they use diversion and misdirection, and sadly people fall for that. Will left because he was embarrassed, embarrassed by hi…

George Will? He's part of the status quo that laid down the foundation on which Trump build his successful candidacy. That George Will? The old white blowhard? That failure is not Trump's fault, it's Will's & Co. But people like Will don't have the integrity to stand up and be counted. George Will has been a solid conservative for decades and written numerous books lauded by conservatives. Consider the possibility th…

>Trump called Ted Cruz a liar.

To be fair, was he wrong? How many career politicians do you know that aren't liars, especially Republicans?

>He implied that Ted Cruz's wife is ugly.

Again, to be fair, I just did a google search and he's not wrong, IMO. Yes, it's in poor taste to make remarks like that, but Trump is a populist, so he's basically playing the "I call it like I see it" card, which gets votes from his base.

>How far does the man have to go to lose credibility in your eyes?

The things you're complaining about are positives in the eyes of Trump voters. That seems to be the problem you're having with understanding. They don't want another regular politician; this is why populists come to power now and then. It seems to me that the biggest problem that both parties have, and is shown by your post here, is a completely inability to comprehend the appeal of someone like Trump to low-information, low-class voters.

Re: Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Campus

#960

Post by magduf » Fri, Feb 15, 2019, 3:08 PM UTC

skh wrote: post #246

magduf wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine getting a worse Pres than the one we have now...

Imagine a version of Donald Trump that was smart and competent.

A version of Trump that was actually smart and competent would probably result in an economic boom rather than stupid government shutdowns and dumb and ineffectual tariffs.