7 ms·
Basically it's, would you like to have $0 in taxes paid by Apple (by assuming they won't come to Iowa if they aren't given a discount), or would you like $76 mi
by cmurf 9y ago
Basically it's, would you like to have $0 in taxes paid by Apple (by assuming they won't come to Iowa if they aren't given a discount), or would you like $76 million in taxes and $100 million in public improvement funds that will mainly benefit Apple?
But it proves the asymmetric negotiation power Apple has compared to constituents. Apple is in a position to say, take it or leave it. And the constituents can't really do that, for them to move elsewhere is much more expensive, for possibly not much of a gain. So basically Apple gets a significant advantage because local officials are looking at money rather than fairness. Why doesn't everyone get the same discount? Oh well, that wouldn't work would it?
It also shows that at scale the property taxes are possibly too high. Which means the property taxes in general are probably too high. But now, because of this "deal", the constituents have even less negotiating power to get their taxes lowered, because the local government sold them out, and now depends on their taxes even more seeing as they can't raise Apple's property taxes for 20 years per this deal.
"This puts Iowa on the world stage," Gov. Kim Reynolds
Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, "All eyes are on Iowa for building this technology ecosystem," she said
The handful of eyes that give a crap about this story, will see how far Iowa has debased themselves. Iowa just got its 15 minutes of fame, it's already over, you're not getting anymore out of this deal than what's already happened. Unless of course, you whore yourselves out yet again to another company. That's what you've just advertised, Iowa.
Two perspectives from inside Iowa:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/08/25/7-things-know-apple-data-center-waukee/599347001/ http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2017/08/25/7-thi...
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/08/29/apples-waukee-data-center-deal-win-win-iowa/610288001/ http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/...
- throwaway2048 9y agoIf nobody cut deals like this, apple would be forced to pay taxes somewhere, so no matter what _somewhere_ is losing a huge amount of tax. Its a race to the bottom.
- cmurf 9y agoFairness and consistency is not a race to the bottom. It's what builds trust.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hintoftime 9y ago> Facebook, Google and Microsoft have cited Iowa's large inventory of available land, low energy costs, high portfolio of renewable energy and low risk of natural disasters as reasons for locating here. I'm interested to hear how other states stack up against this and if this factors in at all.
- bb88 9y ago> It also shows that at scale the property taxes are possibly too high. Which means the property taxes in general are probably too high. The part of this that's unclear to me is how much is Apple paying to Iowa as income tax, sales tax, etc? Even though apple may be selling services out of that data center, I'm not entirely sure it's taxable. It would be different if Apple were selling physical goods. In which case, high property taxes might be justified completely.