Tax Incentives Archives - Public Seminar

Economy

Corporate Handouts Are Leverage

States and cities can make free money less free, if they try.

November 22, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

Last month, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, as part of an ongoing fight he has with the Republican-controlled state legislature over the minimum wage, released an executive order requiring corporations that receive tax incentives or grants from the state to pay the same minimum wage that state contractors must pay ($13.50 an hour, increasing to ...

Economy

“Opportunity Zones” Are a Game Only the Rich Can Play

Too often they bring storage facilities and upscale college housing, but not economic prosperity

October 20, 2021 • by Arlene Martínez

On SW Taylor Street in Portland, Oregon, there is a shiny new glass-and-steel building with a fireplace in its grand lobby. Developers got approval for the posh retail and office project in 2016 and, a year later, a local gas utility inked a 20-year lease to house its headquarters there. As it ...

“Opportunity Zones” Are a Game Only the Rich Can Play

Economy

Casinos Are a Gamble

The U.S. is awash in gambling options. Adding new ones isn’t going to do anything appreciable for a local economy

August 9, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ The Omaha, Nebraska, city council recently okayed $17.5 million in tax incentives for a new casino, part of a gambling expansion that voters approved via ballot referendum in 2020. As occurs so often with the current American boom in gambling legalization, the idea behind opening new casinos is ostensibly to ...

Columnists

Car Alarm in Oklahoma

Driving through an absurd incentive cover-up

July 7, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Canoo — a company that makes not boats, but electric cars — announced earlier this month that it will open a new plant in Pryor, Oklahoma. Oklahoma was in the hunt for a Tesla plant that wound up in Austin, Texas, so officials there are spinning this as a very ...

Economy

Apple’s Deal with North Carolina Is a Worm in the State’s Finances for Decades to Come

Companies do not need to be bribed to set up shop in the state’s Research Triangle

May 5, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ Three years ago, Apple snubbed North Carolina when it chose a new campus location instead, like so many tech corporations these days, deciding on Austin, Texas. But playing hard to get ultimately turned out to be very lucrative for the iPhone and iPad designer: last week, North Carolina announced that ...