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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

#161

Post by rayiner »

pasbesoin wrote: post #126
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…

Ameritech/SBC, now AT&T, received, IIRC, circa $750 million in incentives to deploy universal access to high speed Internet throughout Illinois. The ink was hardly dry when they turned around and lobbied the Illinois legislature to let them out of their side of the deal -- while keeping the incentives. The current Foxcon deal in Wisconsin is looking more and more like Foxcon won't be coming through on all their rosy…

> Ameritech/SBC, now AT&T, received, IIRC, circa $750 million in incentives to deploy universal access to high speed Internet throughout Illinois.

Are you talking about the Ameritech/SBC merger?

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

#162

Post by refurb »

The only way you could say it costs NJ $48,000 per job is if you assumed that Amazon would have chosen them for HQ2 anyways, which is obviously not the case.

Saying it costs $48,000 per job is no different than when production companies claim piracy costs $1B+ per year (or some other ridiculous figure). That assumes all the people that would have pirated the movie would have paid full price otherwise.

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

#163

Post by cryptica »

tylerhou wrote: post #133
jondubois wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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. What is progress? How do you measure progress? Many politicians claim that the past decade was progress. I don't see it. >> 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are n…

> How do you measure progress? For the past decade, we've severely deteriorated as a society - Yet politicians will call it progress. Citation? By most metrics we've improved as a society in the last 10 years.

>> Citation?

Donald Trump, Brexit, Facebook, opioids epidemic, cryptocurrencies, increased rents, soul-crushing corporate jobs for all.

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

#164

Post by chiefalchemist »

kodablah wrote: post #151
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…

Disagree. The freedom for a community to spend funds in ways they want is much more free than the opposite. Also disagree with your bottom line. In many cases (e.g. ones where abatements were given in my community) it lowered the tax rate over time.

> "The freedom for a community..."

If this was a community decision why is there pushback in LIC? Because, it wasn't a community decision. It was the gov using taxpayer money to subsidize one of the largest most successful companies in the world.

Fact: The Gov created the housing bubble.

Fact: The Gov created the student loan bubble.

Fact: The abatements in __your__ community came out of someone else's pocket. That money had to come from somewhere.

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

#166

Post by kodablah »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #156
NoblePublius wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Gains? From more road repair? Higher housing costs (read: more welfare state). Other services? Etc. Etc. Etc. You're making it sound like there's only upside. Regardless, the gov should not be in the job buying biz. My gawd, they struggle to govern, and that's their job. Pockets are being lined - once again - at the expense of the tax payers. "Each one of these $150k jobs..." Pardon me, I know this type of reply is f…

> Regardless, the gov should not be in the job buying biz

Says you. I think they do a better job buying that biz than many of the other biz's they buy with public funds. If you want to see pockets being lined, look to things that don't have returns on investment or are poorly managed in real corrupt ways (ala many public pension plans). Not comparing dollar spent to dollar spent of tax money compared to benefits makes it clear some are just anti-private-sector.

> "Each one of these $150k jobs..." Pardon me, I know this type of reply is frowned upon on HN, but...wanna buy a bridge?

Are you implying that the average salary to get the incentives isn't going to be 150k/yr as stated their agreement?

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

#167

Post by segmondy »

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…

Yes, if you get 25k fresh new employees into NY. Chances are a good amount of these employees are already living in NY and paying payroll and property taxes.

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

#168

Post by liquidmetalll »

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).

Except NY state won't gain any income tax from people who fill these jobs but live out of state (NJ or CT). If you've ever worked in NYC, you know that this will be a non-trivial proportion of people. Factoring that into account, it's not clear at all that NY state will see a positive return on this.

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

#170

Post by kodablah »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #164
kodablah wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. The freedom for a community to spend funds in ways they want is much more free than the opposite. Also disagree with your bottom line. In many cases (e.g. ones where abatements were given in my community) it lowered the tax rate over time.

> "The freedom for a community..." If this was a community decision why is there pushback in LIC? Because, it wasn't a community decision. It was the gov using taxpayer money to subsidize one of the largest most successful companies in the world. Fact: The Gov created the housing bubble. Fact: The Gov created the student loan bubble. Fact: The abatements in __your__ community came out of someone else's pocket. That m…

Ignoring the other facts as guff, this is a common misunderstanding:

> The abatements in __your__ community came out of someone else's pocket. That money had to come from somewhere.

Abatements are not gifts, they are reductions. The money that was not taken did not have to come from anywhere. The reductions did not amount to a negative total (not even close in my case), and therefore the abatements essentially amount to a sale price, not below cost. In other cases, such as sports teams, the benefits of the trade-offs are not as easily recognized because they are not purely financial. But here, it is simpler to understand the bulk discounts in exchange for economic growth.

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