You're right to identify tax revenues as the source of funding for local services but there's a strong case to be made for taxing people and not corporations.

You're right to identify tax revenues as the source of funding for local services but there's a strong case to be made for taxing people and not corporations. Corporations don't pay taxes, they simply pass the burden on to customers/employees/shareholders. It would be simpler (and arguably it would allow the market to allocation resources more efficiently) if corporations paid 0 tax and people paid taxes. Consider this: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/why-we-should-eliminate-the-corporate-income-tax/65351/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/why-we-... And you're right to point out that companies bid jurisdictions against each other. But many bid winners wouldn't get the facility without a special accommodation. I'm sure Apple chose this town because of the benefits, and this town is better off for it. I'm also sure this town wouldn't have been selected if there weren't any 'wooing' process, so this town is strictly better off. If the town can serve its citizens with fewer tax revenue, then they're doing something right and hopefully they can expand and more people will choose to live there. This helps incentivize communities to operate more efficiently and that's a good thing. IMO the bigger problem is corporate free loaders. All the local walmarts use way more police time than the targets, but Walmart doesn't pay additional fees for the intensive use of police. The simple solution is a corporate tax but that isn't good because it doesn't incentivize more or less use of the police, ideally we'd charge them according to use which is different from a tax and more closely aligned with our preferences (e.g preference for less police work at walmart).