Tax Breaks for Development

TheRifleman

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Does this make any sense to people? Basically we are giving tax incentives & breaks to the most valuable company in the world only to have American Taxpayers pay for their development and continue to enrich the company and its employees. This takes the Capital out of Capitalism now.
50 jobs divided by 208 million in tax breaks is the cost of $4,160,000 a hiree.
Iowa must be a BLUE State now.

Apple gets $208M in tax breaks to build Iowa data center

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa approved a deal Thursday to give Apple $208 million in state and local tax breaks to build two data storage centers near Des Moines and the promise to create 50 jobs.

The deal approved by the Iowa Economic Development Authority includes a refund of $19.6 million in state sale taxes for Apple Inc. and a $188 million break on property taxes from Waukee, a booming suburb bordering Des Moines.

In addition to the promised 50 jobs, Apple has agreed to buy 2,000 acres of land for the $1.4 billion project, enough to allow for future development, said Debi Durham, the state's economic development director.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds were expected to discuss the deal at a news conference later Thursday.

Critics were quick to cast the deal as bad for the public.

"It's a net fiscal loss that it's a straightforward giveaway in the economy to a company that's extraordinarily wealthy and it makes no sense from an economist's point of view. It only makes sense from a politician's point of view," said David Swenson, an economist at Iowa State University and critic of such large economic development project tax breaks.

The economic development board's chairman, Chris Murray, though said such projects bring people who build homes, generating tax revenue and causing other businesses to look into moving to Iowa.

"They say we should go to Iowa because we have these epicenters there. And as you look at the age demographics and the growth of Iowa, I think it's really difficult to challenge the fact there are ancillary growth benefits from making an investment like this," he said.

Google, Facebook and Microsoft have already built billion-dollar data centers in Iowa. Like Apple, they were drawn to the state by its generous tax breaks, wind-generated electricity and relative security from natural disasters that could disrupt service.
 
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Responding in slightly different order than how you phrased it.

Basically we are giving tax incentives & breaks to the most valuable company in the world only to have American Taxpayers pay for their development and continue to enrich the company and its employees.

“We”? These are Iowa tax dollars being spent, not US tax dollars. I’m not an Iowa taxpayer and I doubt you are, either, and I doubt there are many aBers from Iowa.

Does this make any sense to people?

Not to me.

This takes the Capital out of Capitalism now.

In the United States we have been practicing a pretty fair amount of crony capitalism for some time now. This action is par for the course, so I think insofar as you’re making an accurate point, it’d be fair to say the horse left the barn decades ago. So that word “now” at the end of your sentence is decades behind the curve.

50 jobs divided by 208 million in tax breaks is the cost of $4,160,000 a hiree.

Ayup, that is some serious stupidity right there.

Iowa must be a BLUE State now.

You must be thinking of some different Iowa than the Iowa in the United States. Our Iowa has a Republican Governor, both houses of their state legislature are Republican-controlled on approximate 60/40 splits, both US Senators are Republicans, three of four in the US House are Republican. Doesn’t get much more Republican than that. Maybe you’ve got some other Iowa in mind.

Giving away local and state tax dollars foolishly is a highly bipartisan form of stupidity in the US. If it makes you feel better to delude yourself into thinking it’s only a blue state problem, well, whatever blows your skirt up. But if you're going to tell yourself that, you're going to get blindsided by the Republicans again and again.

If you really want to consider an anti-capitalist form of government policy, one that involves both the state of Iowa AND affects “we” the US taxpayers, go spend some time looking at federal agricultural policy. But brace yourself: it’s got both Democratic AND Republican fingerprints all over it. This tax giveaway to Apple is chicken feed compared to that.
 
From a news article in the Bay Area, Apple claims the value of their Billion dollar facility for county property taxes is only worth...$200.00? That's an impressive argument.

In Santa Clara County, Apple is the leading appealer of tax assessments, with 489 open cases dating back to 2004, disputing $8.5 billion in property value, according to the assessor’s office. Apple is largest taxpayer in the county, paying $56 million in tax year 2017-18.

one claims reflect extreme differences in estimated values. In one appeal filed in 2015, Apple said that a cluster of properties in and around Apple Park in Cupertino that the assessor valued at $1 billion was worth just $200. In another, property that the assessor valued at $384 million was, in Apple’s view, worth $200, according to an appeal application.





https://www.sfchronicle.com/busines...x-bill-So-do-Apple-and-Genentech-13148121.php
 

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