I would go further than this. I don’t believe increased tax revenue is required for these sort of tax breaks to be worthwhile. Sure, increased taxes would be an added benefit. However, even a tax neutral**-ish** measure that created 3k-13k would be a huge benefit for the 3k-13k individuals and families involved. Any government would bite your hand off for a policy shown to benefit 13k families and costing nearly nothing.
Until they want something. Maybe a bit of slack on state inspections? That sort of thing. “We’ve 13k very happy voters here, not to mention family and friends. Be a shame if anything were to happen to them…”
Not including union issues, of course. Got a nickel says no union issues or problems are expected. At any time. Ever.
No threats are necessary; according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the legislation means that the plant doesn’t need an environmental impact statement, exempts it from needing state permits to discharge dredged materials and fill into wetlands, doesn’t need some approvals from the Public Service Commission and lets it mess with waterways as necessary.
What happened to the OP? He hasn’t posted to this thread in more than 48 hours. :dubious:
Very reassuring, in the light of corporate America’s steadfast refusal for greed. Once they reach of comfortable level of profit, there is no motive to seek more.
“What’s that you say? An additional ten percent profit by piping our industrial waste into our employee’s water coolers? Tempting, sure, that would be wrong…”
Let’s not pretend that taxes are simply money taken from taxpayers and not recycled into services and goods that the people voted for. Of every dollar not paid in tax, there is a significant portion of it that is not going to things like maintaining roads and infrastructure, paying for welfare benefits, and various other things taxpayers need and which are best provided by a central authority.
Meanwhile, I see this sort of race to the bottom thing, where we try to make taxes competitive against each other while giving up tax revenue and making no actual gains, and can’t help but see Moloch in action.
I think the point is that these taxes are currently not being paid because the plant isn’t there now. Not taxing the plant doesn’t decrease revenue from what they have now.
Of course, they also do not have the expenses of roads, water, sewers, trash pickup, pollution costs, fire and police protection, etc. When the discussion is limited to revenue without regard to expenditure, it demonstrates a lack of financial and accounting awareness.
Is this a serious question? The benefits of having an educated populace are well understood by economists and policy makers. The return on investment in economic growth and future tax revenues you get is better than almost any investment a state can make. Are you really questioning this?
Giving companies breaks to build factories or stadiums can also add to economic growth and future tax revenues, but the in many cases the benefits don’t materialize. There have been lots of serious economic studies on the costs and benefits of these types of deals. I don’t know enough about this Foxconn plant to comment intelligently, but you throwing the future generations of doctor, lawyers, and engineers under the bus in this thread is off topic and pretty stupid besides. If you have data that shows grants, scholarships, cheap loans, or other subsidies given to college students are a bad idea, you should start your own thread and not shit in this one.
I thought this was a state tax exemption. Is it local, too?
Isn’t Foxcon in particular, infamous for pretending to want to build a factory somewhere, then up and wandering away as soon as they get their “bribes”?
I’ve never heard of that, but IIUI, it sounds like the government putting money into a local economy, or in this case giving them a break in order to lure them in. The new business (again, in this case) creates new jobs and those people spend money in that area. I mentioned that upthread. Sure, people from out of the area and out of the state are going to work there. However, you don’t pay income tax to your county, so that’s moot. And even the people that live out of state will still want to eat and otherwise spend money nearby. As I also mentioned upthread for the majority of the people that don’t know the area, there’s, literally, nothing in around that area. If this deal happens, The area will end up with a couple of fast food places, some sit down places, probably a strip/outlet mall and maybe a fire/police station. It also wouldn’t surprise me if a housing devolper bought out some of the neighboring areas to put up some houses/condos/apartments for the people that quickly got sick of the drive in. A lot of people back and forth from IL to/from WI and that drive is annoying in he morning.
If you’re talking about Foxconn (or other businesses), assuming Racine is the same as my jurisdiction and it may or may not be. You’re right in that they don’t pay for roads, protection, etc. But we do pay businesses to pay for trash (that’s private ie Waste management etc) and we also get a sewer bill. As for water, unless something was mentioned that I missed, I’m not sure why you think they wouldn’t pay for water.
IIRC, the deal is only on if they hire the employees, also it’s a tax incentive. It’s not that someone write the a giant check and they’re going to walk away as soon as it clears…unless I misunderstood something.
That’s the best you can come up with? You? Boffking didn’t return to a thread, be still my heart.
I never pretended anything like that.
A significant portion of something that doesn’t exist is going toward infrastructure. Please elaborate, because that makes no sense to me.
Fair enough, you did mention the multiplier consequences of these 13k jobs. I thought you were highlighting the costs of infrastructure rather than the benefits of a generally thriving local community. Reading your post again I was wrong. I just think that many progressives(im not calling *you *a progressive) seem to think that the main positive of a wage earning household are the taxes paid to the state rather than a fairly decent job being a benefit in itself to the individual and consequently local community. Anything left over for the state is an added benefit.
Your original claim was that tax breaks dd not cost the taxpayers anything.
This notion was offered as an absolute with no context.
However, there is a context. Tax breaks are offered to lure industry to set up shop in a particular location. There is no tax break if they do not actually establish a working location in an area. However, if they do set up a business in a particular location, they are going to require infrastructure to survive and grow their business. That infrastructure will have to be supported by taxes levied on other people or businesses.
Your context-free statement was in error.
This does not mean that tax breaks are evil. They may, indeed, create a situation in which the general economy is improved to the point where the tax burden will be spread sufficiently to justify their use. I do not know whether the Foxconn deal is good or bad, but your cryptic comments are irrelevant.
Most of the infrastructure mentioned thus far is paid for by local taxes, which according to one of the few cites offered they will be paying, and user fees. If there is an actual cost to someone living across the state, let’s see it and compare it to the increase in the taxes the site and its employees will generate.
I think it’s great that we are trying to attract new businesses to the state, but given its proximity to the border with Illinois, how many jobs will actually be filled by Wisconsin residents? It stands to reason that a good portion of the workforce would actually come from our neighbor to the south…
Think of it this way: Giving a company a tax break has exactly the same effect as if you taxed the company the usual amount, and then gave them back a big pile of money. If you would call the latter a giveaway, or corporate welfare, or whatever, then the former is, too.
And that big pile of money that the government is giving to the company is money that could also be spent in many other ways, like paying for tuition for college students or maintaining infrastructure. Will it have better return on investment than those other things it could be spent on?
Probably not, but the part I bolded isn’t an option. The company is either there and not taxed or not there and not taxed.
My main problem is the special treatment. If you want some tax-based job creation or manufacturing incentive (regardless of whether that is a good idea or not), then build a program that lets anyone play.