Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyguy_7
Good to see some of you guys gradually coming to grips with tax breaks for corporations. The long term reward far outweighs any short term/ miniscule "cost" to the city. I put "cost" in quotations because a tax break can hardly be considered a cost. We want as many businesses to do their business here as possible, even when it requires doling out incentives.
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Rhetorical note: It should be understood as a tax break for certain
actions, like hiring or investing, and not as a tax break "for corporations" (i.e., simply for existing, which would just be redistribution to shareholders).
And it's really just basic, sound public policy to subsidize these kinds of things. The same rationale behind taxing carbon and subsidizing R&D applies here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Notyrview
Yeah there must be a balance. Ideally they would be precluded from accepting tax breaks under federal law. that way the playing field would remain even and you wouldn’t see states and cities competing in a race to the bottom vis a vis revenue collection. Until that happens the city should squeeze whatever it can out of corporations that benefit from its dynamic workforce and utterly magnificent urban landscape.
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The thing is, some places need more investment than others. Some places may benefit more from certain *types* of investment than others. There are tons of articles out there begging Bezos to choose a struggling city like Detroit for Amazon HQ2 on the basis that those places could really use it. Allowing cities and states of offer incentives could help corporations properly internalize the effects their investment decisions will have on society. (Distributional concerns about how we ultimately raise revenue can still be addressed separately)