Amazon HQ2 Tax Incentives

A city's tax revenue isn't "lower than it should be" with Amazon's headquarters (subsidized by the taxpayer). If they don't attract Amazon, they don't get any money at all. With Amazon, they get increased employment and all the taxes employees are now paying. And all the benefits of having a tech giant centered in your jurisdiction. It's a win-win for Amazon and any cities willing to play.

I'm glad they dropped it. There are some grounded concerns:* Amazon is one of the most successful enterprises in human history and should not require support from taxpayers beyond their voluntary patronage of Amazon itself.* Most of these "deals" were put together secretly without input from the public. Millions (or in NY's case, billion+) of dollars were packaged and presented without community input or oversight* While amazon is talking about bringing middle and up

Usually tax deals or tax holidays are offered to entice prospective companies but given Amazon's US tax burden is already nearly zero what else can these cities offer, free land, protection from unions?Amazon seems unlikely to choose a city randomly, its likely to already have decided which city suits it best in terms of logistics, efficiency, cost and available labour pool so this seems to be an elaborate game to squeeze its preferred city.

Amazon just did it. Everyone doesn’t need to pack up and move.Those homeowners seem to have a majority in the area. Seems moronic to run a trillion dollar company at odds with the local government.NYC has an income tax. I bet SF will have one within 5 years.

I don't understand the outrage towards Amazon.1. No one forced any of these states/cities to join this bidding contest. They willingly participated. "How dare Amazon put cities against one another in a bidding war?!" Yeah, I put five dealers against one another in a bidding war to get my business the last time I shopped for a car. Amazon can do the same thing.2. "Jeff Bezos doesn't need our tax breaks!" I bet he doesn't. I don't think Jeff Bezos

Good, Amazon shouldn't be getting any subsidies just for having their offices in a city.

Plus it's a way for cities to start a bidding war, offering the lowest tax rates and property prices. Effectively Amazon will get their new HQ for free, if not have the cities actively pay for it. Because jobs. Free market, competition, etc, yay.

Amazon also has mastered the art of getting cities to bend over backwards for them, offering tax breaks and land because Amazon wants to bring X number of jobs that pay over $100K/year to the city. Well, now these offices are vacant and the high paid workers are not even in the city like Amazon promised. The cities that helped Amazon foot the bill for their offices are not super happy and want either the results they promised or for Amazon to pay back what the city had invested.

Amazon doesn't want to lose those millions in tax incentives

What Amazon did shouldn't be illegal; what the cities did to try to get Amazon to them should be.Rather than punish Amazon, punish the public servants who thought a large tax break for years, or real estate deals, would really be big enough to draw the company in.What Amazon did was playing the field; why not get a bonus for letting others compete; rather than taking nothing because it was already decided?