I sat on what is known as a Tax Incentive Review Council of close to 20 years in Hamilton County. Our job was to determine if the tax break recipient was complying with the agreement terms and if not, make a recommendation to the local political subdivision on whether or not to continue the agreement. In all those years at least 90% of companies coming hat in hand to ask for tax relief no more needed the breaks than the man in the moon. In one case a major auto company came claiming that without a few hundred grand in breaks they would not be able to build a new transmission. By their own admission, there were only only two other plants in the world that could build the tranny - one in France, the other in Brazil.Another multi-billion dollar company wanted chump change in breaks for it's "woe is me, we need the breaks or we can't survive" project.
Tax incentives are games, extortion, and bribes used by companies to sucker local governments into giving the farm away for little or no real benefit to the community. In my opinion, every penny abated in tax breaks should added onto the companies' federal tax obligations. And now poor, destitute, Intel needs a few hundred pesos to build a plant it absolutely needs in order to continue padding the C-levels back pockets.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
