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Google Wants $15M in Tax Breaks to Build a Data Center in Minnesota

109 points by protomyth 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mamon 8y ago
Do not negotiate with terrorists. They need to build this datacenter somewhere, so if no city/state yields to their demands they will build it anyway, without any tax breaks.
- jtlienwis 8y ago
  But digging deep into the pockets of the middle class is just so easy these days.
- cma 8y ago
  If only the states could form some kind of democratic collective action mechanism to avoid getting ripped off like this, some kind of union of states.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Well, isn't it in the collective's best interest that playing favoritism with corporate welfare (or any welfare favoritism) should be outlawed?
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      Yes, that is what the parent comment is saying; look closely to see the sarcasm.
- mmmmmmmmm 8y ago
  I don't think you know what a terrorist is.
- nugget 8y ago
  Isnt competition in free markets healthy? Doesn’t it tend to benefit everybody over time as products and services improve? Why would State or municipal governance, as a service, be immune from this? A US Supreme Court Justice once called American States “laboratories of democracy” and I think that’s apt. Let citizens vote with their feet, so to speak. In practical terms, Google (or Amazon, etc.) wants tax breaks but also wants a desirable community to help recruit and retain talented employees. If a community so impoverishes itself via tax breaks that it can’t afford to remain desirable, then nobody wins. Abuse and wildly perverse incentives are of course possible, but absent those scenarios, there’s an equilibrium between private incentives and public investment that certainly exists.
  - xvector 8y ago
    > Isnt competition in free markets healthy? Doesn’t it tend to benefit everybody over time as products and services improve? No? Hence the need for regulations. The free market and competition are not inherently good things. They can be very, very bad for your average citizen.
    - nugget 8y ago
      I don’t think anyone is arguing for no regulation. I am supporting competition within a regulatory framework. Constitutional, consumer, environmental, and other similar protections are all critical. It’s a reality that there remain very different philosophies regarding local governance — taxation, public services, public-private partnerships, etc. and some appropriate level of competition seems to be the best way to test competing approaches and compare outcomes.
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    That breaks down in a lot of ways like most markets because of the huge power imbalance both in information and raw economic power. Just look at what Foxconn did in Wisconsin, (and pretty much everywhere else it's ever made a deal) the companies can promise the moon knowing they'll never deliver on half of it but the huge promise puts a huge electoral pressure on the local politicians to make the deal and the company signs a deal with little to no teeth (again they can largely dictate the terms of the deal because there's no reason they have to go with any particular location). Then the problems caused by the huge loans or bonds issued to finance a deal exist on a longer time frame than the company usually cares about and if they get too bad they can just toss in a little more compensation or start the cycle all over again in a new city. Google doesn't particularly care about how bad the local community gets there's enough single/childless couples in the work force to provide the minimal local employees a data center will need and when a particular employee's lifestyle changes they can just be move internally and replaced. And if it gets bad enough it's simple enough to build another datacenter.
pkaye 8y ago
> After construction wraps, with 18 remaining years of tax abatement, there will be a $270,000 tax shortfall for every full-time position created. Maybe add a $270k tax to each of those employees to break even? /s
- tantalor 8y ago
  That figure is for 18 years; it's actually $15k per employee per year. Adding a tax to offset the tax abatement seems to defeat the purpose.
  - jonas21 8y ago
    It's also excluding the 2300 people constructing the datacenter for 1.5 to 2 years. Overall, it sounds like they're trading $15M in tax credits for between 4350 and 5500 person-years of jobs over 20 years. So around $2700 to $3500 per person-year.
    - rtkwe 8y ago
      2300 seems way high even if you're counting each different person that comes through and most of those won't be working the whole time. They'll come through and do electrical/HVAC/frame construction/etc for a few months then leave. Only a few will be there the whole construction and those will mostly be management and supervisor/contractor roles.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
profmonocle 8y ago
From the linked MPR article (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-breaks-sought-to-bring-google-to-becker-minnesota https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-bre...) > A Google data center often attracts other major technology-based companies to invest in the same area, Bertram said. I'm confused why this would be. What economic benefit would proximity to a Google data center bring, besides lower latency to some of Google's services? I can't imagine 15ms lower latency to a Google service being the deciding factor for where to locate your company.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago
  Maybe providing auxiliary technical services that are best done locally... though at the moment I can't think of anything that is high-margin and scales well.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  I can't imagine 15ms lower latency to a Google service being the deciding factor for where to locate your company. It can be, depending on your industry. Financial firms are like this. I don't know if Minneapolis still has a commodities exchange, but if it does it would be attractive to those kinds of people. Probably others I've never thought about. But overall, I think $15M for a data center is too much. Data centers don't make a dent on employment or property tax in most places they're located. It may also be worth noting that Cray supercomputers has a big presence in the area.
  - mruts 8y ago
    Why would a financial firm care about 15ms latency to a google service? It's not like they would be using the cloud in the first place.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      The government has a lot of people to keep track of in Minneapolis just in case they may want to "collect" data in the future.
leakybit 8y ago
Money must be tight at Google
- sizzzzlerz 8y ago
  Those $100M yachts and Montana ranches aren't going to buy themselves.
kartan 8y ago
> Google is promising to bring 50 full-time positions to the area. The company also projects that it will create 2,300 jobs during the 18–24 month construction window. Is this a joke? > State Sen. Andrew Mathews (R–Milaca) and state Rep. Shane Mekeland (R–Clear Lake) recently introduced a bill to provide an additional $20.1 million in state bonds to give the Becker Business Park—where the data center would be built—a facelift. So, invest 1 million in politicians get tens of millions from the public treasury. > Such incentives are typically justified by politicians as a crucial way to stimulate the economy. Probably their own personal economies. There are reasons to give corporations tax breaks. Like for example to expand green energy or to give jobs to people in risk of exclusion, or another hundred reasons. But, it looks like now it is used for everything without any real justification beyond "the company will bring business to the town". That can be covered by any kind of business willing to pay for lobbying and that does not present any social benefit. And it is a zero-sum game where another town loses the possibility for you to gain it. It is hardly a justifiable situation.
- moorhosj 8y ago
  ==And it is a zero-sum game where another town loses the possibility for you to gain it. It is hardly a justifiable situation.== This is the most critical piece. What would legislation to address this at the national level even look like?
  - alehul 8y ago
    The only way seems to be to either to completely outlaw these negotiations, or create a standard rate (i.e. if the project will bring 100 jobs, the cities have the option but not the obligation to offer $10m in various forms of tax breaks— or maybe capped at $10m). The trouble is that, at a higher level, this unwillingness to play ball may just result in the companies fleeing to other countries rather than other states. This involves a higher switching cost for most companies, and would require more incentives than that for intra-nation migration, but it's still possible.
    - jamiequint 8y ago
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue-of-google/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue... https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-irish-tax-loopholes-european-billions-ad-revenue https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-iri... This company doesn't need tax breaks, it actually needs to pay more taxes. We have to stop this idiotic behavior. There's a word for what the tax breaks are- bribery.
- smallgovt 8y ago
  I don't think corporations should be allowed to negotiate tax breaks like this, but I think labeling this as bribery is disingenuous because it is neither illegal nor dishonest.
  - supernovae 8y ago
    You're right, it's not illegal. However, I would say its dishonest. Let's be real. Corporations exist solely to make money. Why should taxpayers fund the winners? Who gets to choose that Google deserves taxpayer dollars and for what reason? If you read the sales marketing pitch for new data centers they talk about billions in economic viability - if that were indeed true to the extent that the marketing material wants you to believe then corporations would fill that datacenter void and compete with one another to do so. Because they're asking for incentives seems to suggest that the viability isn't there or that the corporations have so much control that they not only impose their will upon employees but not the governments and municipalities they operate in because there is potential for some long tail tax opportunities that Google doesn't take a risk on but the towns do. That's what ticks me off. Nothing in life is guaranteed but here we are guaranteeing google that they will win. There was a time when a big city in NJ could do no wrong building HUGE telco buildings with no windows and huge tax incentives. It ended up building a downtown no one wanted to live or work in and the city has no money because the corporations exist tax-free and the city actually has to carry their liability even those services are being shut down, abandoned or aren't worth the promise they sold to the city to begin with. Mostly because companies realized its cheaper to quit city and move to another if there is free money on the table
tptacek 8y ago
I'm a little confused here; 15MM over 20 years doesn't sound like a huge amount of money, and if the data center is being built on the grounds of a coal power facility that is being decommissioned, it's not clear how Sherburne County was going to see that money anyways. Becker is a very small town 45 minutes away from MSP; what negotiating leverage do they have? Even with the tax package, how is this a net negative for Becker? Google is apparently getting a bigger break from New Albany, which is on the outskirts of Columbus OH.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  I think the negative reaction has something to do with the ROI for the tax money forgone? From the article: > After construction wraps, with 18 remaining years of tax abatement, there will be a $270,000 tax shortfall for every full-time position created. It's not as bad as Wisconsin's Foxconn cluster-F, but for a rural area, 15k a year per person is not peanuts. Difficult to make that up someplace else. (Well, not "difficult" from a technical perspective, you can just raise taxes on people in the rest of the state. But politically speaking, what if the people in the rest of the state figure out what you're up to? That's what happened in Wisconsin.)
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Thanks! I feel like I'm still not understanding. The tax breaks Google is asking for are city and county property taxes. If Google doesn't move in, the county isn't getting that money anyways. What's the "shortfall" here?
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      The shortfall represents the money not present assuming that Google DOES move in. If Google moves in, and they maintain the current tax rates on people currently living in that municipality, then the shortfall is about 15k per Google head. If Google DOES NOT move in, there is no shortfall at all. Of course, they can just increase the taxes on people already there in residence. But again, rural area. Not a lot of money. So I expect it'd be more likely for them to try to get money from the state coffers to cover the shortfall. Not really sure what the plan is to cover the shortfall in the event that Google moves in using the subsidies outlined.
nwatson 8y ago
Just for comparison, there's a data center in Lenoir, NC (nearest thing to a "tech hub" would be considered Charlotte, NC about 1-to-1.5 hours away). The report [1] claims: "In its analysis for Google, Oxford Economics shows the data center in North Carolina’s Caldwell County is responsible for 1,024 jobs. The total includes 250 jobs directly attributable to Google activity, indirect jobs in the data center’s supply chain, and induced jobs (those generated by the “multiplier effect” of spending by Google and its vendors in the community). ... Google has invested $1.2 billion in the data center in Lenoir, and its 250 direct jobs generate a combined recurring income of approximately $22.5 million, the report says." (And I assume the "recurring income" is (OLD: tax-revenue-to-government-entities) actual income for workers, about $90K average.) [1] "Report Examines Economic Impact of Google Data Centers in N.C. and Across U.S." -- https://edpnc.com/report-examines-economic-impact-google-data-centers-lenoir-n-c-across-u-s/ https://edpnc.com/report-examines-economic-impact-google-dat... ( My father-in-law worked 40 years ago at this campus location (around when my wife was born) when it was part of the furniture industry. He himself fared well enough in the that industry in various companies/locations till he retired about 5 years ago, working in HR. While the furniture design-side still lives on, especially around High Point, NC, much manufacturing has moved overseas. ) EDIT: I revised, now I think the "recurring income" is for workers, not government entities ... also, added father-in-law's connection
AtlasBarfed 8y ago
I read some oregon or washington rural county threw incentives at a data center. It ended up being so automated it employed 6 people total. Maybe in 100 years they would recoup the incentives. ... edit: but I can't find the original story. I did see ones where the automated centers still produce a lot of property tax revenue but the lack of jobs is good because it doesn't further load municipal resources... I guess it comes down to smart accounting.
gesman 8y ago
Can I get $10k of tax break if i move to XX and hire my wife (and kids)? On a serious note - taxes are too high and world is too mobile. More people and more corps will find a greener pastries easy way or hard way.
internet_user 8y ago
For 20 years? and close it in 19?
patrickg_zill 8y ago
It's a lights out DC that won't be a hub for Google jobs. Are they going to give rebates on the taxes paid by the other DC's that have been built without incentives? If not, why not?
trumped 8y ago
Anyone else can say "fuck you google"? They're going to have to build it anyways. I know that the NSA will profit from it, but still... that is pushing it.
throw2016 8y ago
There is a larger issue of a level playing field. These kind of subsidies are a race to the bottom. Instead of business growing the overall economy they shrink the economy by the amount paid out in subsides, since these businesses will be built anyway if not here somewhere else in the country that is a overall loss to the country. So you are actually subsidizing business on the national level, which is why businesses should not be allowed to cynically play off states against another. Focusing on localized gains by the logic of 'something is better than nothing' misses the bigger picture and is misleading and disingenuous. It's like if tax payers could be incentivized to file in different regions by competitive breaks to grow the local tax filing economy and revenue of various regions, that is a shrinking of overall tax revenue though it may be a rise for specific regions.

109 points by protomyth 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Do not negotiate with terrorists. They need to build this datacenter somewhere, so if no city/state yields to their demands they will build it anyway, without any tax breaks.

jtlienwis 8y ago
But digging deep into the pockets of the middle class is just so easy these days.
cma 8y ago
If only the states could form some kind of democratic collective action mechanism to avoid getting ripped off like this, some kind of union of states.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Well, isn't it in the collective's best interest that playing favoritism with corporate welfare (or any welfare favoritism) should be outlawed?
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    Yes, that is what the parent comment is saying; look closely to see the sarcasm.
mmmmmmmmm 8y ago
I don't think you know what a terrorist is.
nugget 8y ago
Isnt competition in free markets healthy? Doesn’t it tend to benefit everybody over time as products and services improve? Why would State or municipal governance, as a service, be immune from this? A US Supreme Court Justice once called American States “laboratories of democracy” and I think that’s apt. Let citizens vote with their feet, so to speak. In practical terms, Google (or Amazon, etc.) wants tax breaks but also wants a desirable community to help recruit and retain talented employees. If a community so impoverishes itself via tax breaks that it can’t afford to remain desirable, then nobody wins. Abuse and wildly perverse incentives are of course possible, but absent those scenarios, there’s an equilibrium between private incentives and public investment that certainly exists.
- xvector 8y ago
  > Isnt competition in free markets healthy? Doesn’t it tend to benefit everybody over time as products and services improve? No? Hence the need for regulations. The free market and competition are not inherently good things. They can be very, very bad for your average citizen.
  - nugget 8y ago
    I don’t think anyone is arguing for no regulation. I am supporting competition within a regulatory framework. Constitutional, consumer, environmental, and other similar protections are all critical. It’s a reality that there remain very different philosophies regarding local governance — taxation, public services, public-private partnerships, etc. and some appropriate level of competition seems to be the best way to test competing approaches and compare outcomes.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  That breaks down in a lot of ways like most markets because of the huge power imbalance both in information and raw economic power. Just look at what Foxconn did in Wisconsin, (and pretty much everywhere else it's ever made a deal) the companies can promise the moon knowing they'll never deliver on half of it but the huge promise puts a huge electoral pressure on the local politicians to make the deal and the company signs a deal with little to no teeth (again they can largely dictate the terms of the deal because there's no reason they have to go with any particular location). Then the problems caused by the huge loans or bonds issued to finance a deal exist on a longer time frame than the company usually cares about and if they get too bad they can just toss in a little more compensation or start the cycle all over again in a new city. Google doesn't particularly care about how bad the local community gets there's enough single/childless couples in the work force to provide the minimal local employees a data center will need and when a particular employee's lifestyle changes they can just be move internally and replaced. And if it gets bad enough it's simple enough to build another datacenter.

pkaye 8y ago

> After construction wraps, with 18 remaining years of tax abatement, there will be a $270,000 tax shortfall for every full-time position created. Maybe add a $270k tax to each of those employees to break even? /s

tantalor 8y ago
That figure is for 18 years; it's actually $15k per employee per year. Adding a tax to offset the tax abatement seems to defeat the purpose.
- jonas21 8y ago
  It's also excluding the 2300 people constructing the datacenter for 1.5 to 2 years. Overall, it sounds like they're trading $15M in tax credits for between 4350 and 5500 person-years of jobs over 20 years. So around $2700 to $3500 per person-year.
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    2300 seems way high even if you're counting each different person that comes through and most of those won't be working the whole time. They'll come through and do electrical/HVAC/frame construction/etc for a few months then leave. Only a few will be there the whole construction and those will mostly be management and supervisor/contractor roles.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

profmonocle 8y ago

From the linked MPR article (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-breaks-sought-to-bring-google-to-becker-minnesota https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-bre...) > A Google data center often attracts other major technology-based companies to invest in the same area, Bertram said. I'm confused why this would be. What economic benefit would proximity to a Google data center bring, besides lower latency to some of Google's services? I can't imagine 15ms lower latency to a Google service being the deciding factor for where to locate your company.

i_am_nomad 8y ago
Maybe providing auxiliary technical services that are best done locally... though at the moment I can't think of anything that is high-margin and scales well.
reaperducer 8y ago
I can't imagine 15ms lower latency to a Google service being the deciding factor for where to locate your company. It can be, depending on your industry. Financial firms are like this. I don't know if Minneapolis still has a commodities exchange, but if it does it would be attractive to those kinds of people. Probably others I've never thought about. But overall, I think $15M for a data center is too much. Data centers don't make a dent on employment or property tax in most places they're located. It may also be worth noting that Cray supercomputers has a big presence in the area.
- mruts 8y ago
  Why would a financial firm care about 15ms latency to a google service? It's not like they would be using the cloud in the first place.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    The government has a lot of people to keep track of in Minneapolis just in case they may want to "collect" data in the future.

leakybit 8y ago

Money must be tight at Google

sizzzzlerz 8y ago
Those $100M yachts and Montana ranches aren't going to buy themselves.

kartan 8y ago

> Google is promising to bring 50 full-time positions to the area. The company also projects that it will create 2,300 jobs during the 18–24 month construction window. Is this a joke? > State Sen. Andrew Mathews (R–Milaca) and state Rep. Shane Mekeland (R–Clear Lake) recently introduced a bill to provide an additional $20.1 million in state bonds to give the Becker Business Park—where the data center would be built—a facelift. So, invest 1 million in politicians get tens of millions from the public treasury. > Such incentives are typically justified by politicians as a crucial way to stimulate the economy. Probably their own personal economies. There are reasons to give corporations tax breaks. Like for example to expand green energy or to give jobs to people in risk of exclusion, or another hundred reasons. But, it looks like now it is used for everything without any real justification beyond "the company will bring business to the town". That can be covered by any kind of business willing to pay for lobbying and that does not present any social benefit. And it is a zero-sum game where another town loses the possibility for you to gain it. It is hardly a justifiable situation.

moorhosj 8y ago
==And it is a zero-sum game where another town loses the possibility for you to gain it. It is hardly a justifiable situation.== This is the most critical piece. What would legislation to address this at the national level even look like?
- alehul 8y ago
  The only way seems to be to either to completely outlaw these negotiations, or create a standard rate (i.e. if the project will bring 100 jobs, the cities have the option but not the obligation to offer $10m in various forms of tax breaks— or maybe capped at $10m). The trouble is that, at a higher level, this unwillingness to play ball may just result in the companies fleeing to other countries rather than other states. This involves a higher switching cost for most companies, and would require more incentives than that for intra-nation migration, but it's still possible.
  - jamiequint 8y ago

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue-of-google/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267606/quarterly-revenue... https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-irish-tax-loopholes-european-billions-ad-revenue https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-iri... This company doesn't need tax breaks, it actually needs to pay more taxes. We have to stop this idiotic behavior. There's a word for what the tax breaks are- bribery.

smallgovt 8y ago
I don't think corporations should be allowed to negotiate tax breaks like this, but I think labeling this as bribery is disingenuous because it is neither illegal nor dishonest.
- supernovae 8y ago
  You're right, it's not illegal. However, I would say its dishonest. Let's be real. Corporations exist solely to make money. Why should taxpayers fund the winners? Who gets to choose that Google deserves taxpayer dollars and for what reason? If you read the sales marketing pitch for new data centers they talk about billions in economic viability - if that were indeed true to the extent that the marketing material wants you to believe then corporations would fill that datacenter void and compete with one another to do so. Because they're asking for incentives seems to suggest that the viability isn't there or that the corporations have so much control that they not only impose their will upon employees but not the governments and municipalities they operate in because there is potential for some long tail tax opportunities that Google doesn't take a risk on but the towns do. That's what ticks me off. Nothing in life is guaranteed but here we are guaranteeing google that they will win. There was a time when a big city in NJ could do no wrong building HUGE telco buildings with no windows and huge tax incentives. It ended up building a downtown no one wanted to live or work in and the city has no money because the corporations exist tax-free and the city actually has to carry their liability even those services are being shut down, abandoned or aren't worth the promise they sold to the city to begin with. Mostly because companies realized its cheaper to quit city and move to another if there is free money on the table

tptacek 8y ago

I'm a little confused here; 15MM over 20 years doesn't sound like a huge amount of money, and if the data center is being built on the grounds of a coal power facility that is being decommissioned, it's not clear how Sherburne County was going to see that money anyways. Becker is a very small town 45 minutes away from MSP; what negotiating leverage do they have? Even with the tax package, how is this a net negative for Becker? Google is apparently getting a bigger break from New Albany, which is on the outskirts of Columbus OH.

bilbo0s 8y ago
I think the negative reaction has something to do with the ROI for the tax money forgone? From the article: > After construction wraps, with 18 remaining years of tax abatement, there will be a $270,000 tax shortfall for every full-time position created. It's not as bad as Wisconsin's Foxconn cluster-F, but for a rural area, 15k a year per person is not peanuts. Difficult to make that up someplace else. (Well, not "difficult" from a technical perspective, you can just raise taxes on people in the rest of the state. But politically speaking, what if the people in the rest of the state figure out what you're up to? That's what happened in Wisconsin.)
- tptacek 8y ago
  Thanks! I feel like I'm still not understanding. The tax breaks Google is asking for are city and county property taxes. If Google doesn't move in, the county isn't getting that money anyways. What's the "shortfall" here?
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    The shortfall represents the money not present assuming that Google DOES move in. If Google moves in, and they maintain the current tax rates on people currently living in that municipality, then the shortfall is about 15k per Google head. If Google DOES NOT move in, there is no shortfall at all. Of course, they can just increase the taxes on people already there in residence. But again, rural area. Not a lot of money. So I expect it'd be more likely for them to try to get money from the state coffers to cover the shortfall. Not really sure what the plan is to cover the shortfall in the event that Google moves in using the subsidies outlined.

nwatson 8y ago

Just for comparison, there's a data center in Lenoir, NC (nearest thing to a "tech hub" would be considered Charlotte, NC about 1-to-1.5 hours away). The report [1] claims: "In its analysis for Google, Oxford Economics shows the data center in North Carolina’s Caldwell County is responsible for 1,024 jobs. The total includes 250 jobs directly attributable to Google activity, indirect jobs in the data center’s supply chain, and induced jobs (those generated by the “multiplier effect” of spending by Google and its vendors in the community). ... Google has invested $1.2 billion in the data center in Lenoir, and its 250 direct jobs generate a combined recurring income of approximately $22.5 million, the report says." (And I assume the "recurring income" is (OLD: tax-revenue-to-government-entities) actual income for workers, about $90K average.) [1] "Report Examines Economic Impact of Google Data Centers in N.C. and Across U.S." -- https://edpnc.com/report-examines-economic-impact-google-data-centers-lenoir-n-c-across-u-s/ https://edpnc.com/report-examines-economic-impact-google-dat... ( My father-in-law worked 40 years ago at this campus location (around when my wife was born) when it was part of the furniture industry. He himself fared well enough in the that industry in various companies/locations till he retired about 5 years ago, working in HR. While the furniture design-side still lives on, especially around High Point, NC, much manufacturing has moved overseas. ) EDIT: I revised, now I think the "recurring income" is for workers, not government entities ... also, added father-in-law's connection

AtlasBarfed 8y ago

I read some oregon or washington rural county threw incentives at a data center. It ended up being so automated it employed 6 people total. Maybe in 100 years they would recoup the incentives. ... edit: but I can't find the original story. I did see ones where the automated centers still produce a lot of property tax revenue but the lack of jobs is good because it doesn't further load municipal resources... I guess it comes down to smart accounting.

gesman 8y ago

Can I get $10k of tax break if i move to XX and hire my wife (and kids)? On a serious note - taxes are too high and world is too mobile. More people and more corps will find a greener pastries easy way or hard way.

internet_user 8y ago

For 20 years? and close it in 19?

patrickg_zill 8y ago

It's a lights out DC that won't be a hub for Google jobs. Are they going to give rebates on the taxes paid by the other DC's that have been built without incentives? If not, why not?

trumped 8y ago

Anyone else can say "fuck you google"? They're going to have to build it anyways. I know that the NSA will profit from it, but still... that is pushing it.

throw2016 8y ago

There is a larger issue of a level playing field. These kind of subsidies are a race to the bottom. Instead of business growing the overall economy they shrink the economy by the amount paid out in subsides, since these businesses will be built anyway if not here somewhere else in the country that is a overall loss to the country. So you are actually subsidizing business on the national level, which is why businesses should not be allowed to cynically play off states against another. Focusing on localized gains by the logic of 'something is better than nothing' misses the bigger picture and is misleading and disingenuous. It's like if tax payers could be incentivized to file in different regions by competitive breaks to grow the local tax filing economy and revenue of various regions, that is a shrinking of overall tax revenue though it may be a rise for specific regions.