Amazon HQ2 Decision: Tax Rates "Critical"

Published: Sunday, January 14th, 2018 @ 12:13 pm
By: John Locke Foundation ( More Entries )

Publisher's note: This post, by Brian Balfour, was originally published in the corporate welfare section of Civitas's online edition.

A well-educated, highly productive workforce, access to markets and suppliers, sound infrastructure, and a high quality of life for employees are more important to corporate leaders than state taxes, according to numerous surveys, studies and popular rankings of "business friendly" states.

    The above quote was made in a paper by the far-left Budget & Tax Center in April 2013. In a desperate attempt to fight against tax cuts for hard-working North Carolinians, they repeatedly attempted to convince legislators that state taxes play little to no role in state economic growth.

    Why bring this up now?

    North Carolina, among many other states, are in a tizzy trying to land the reported "second headquarters" of Amazon.

    And what did Amazon itself say was the most important selection criteria for the new project?

When Amazon made its headquarters announcement, it provided a list of factors that would influence its decision. It was clear about incentives, calling them "critical."
"A stable and business-friendly environment and tax structure will be high-priority considerations for the Project," the company says, which includes incentives to offset initial capital outlay and ongoing costs.

Sorry, leftists. Taxes do matter.

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Bobby Tony said:

( January 20th, 2018 @ 7:38 am )

I may be channeling Diane Rufino here, but maybe the States Rights issue is rising to the top of the heap. Some states don't want to follow Federal immigration laws, some states don't want to be bribed to increase funding for medicaid. We are a diverse nation. The Southern abuse of the States Rights on slavery and segregation issue set back the intent of the constitution. (I doubt Diane would agree with this)

Maybe it is time for the states to collect all the taxes and only send to the Federal Government the amount necessary to cover expenses for it limited functions under the constitution.

Alex has a great blog about his father's experience with larger companies.

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Stan Deatherage said:

( January 19th, 2018 @ 5:23 pm )

the small businesses are getting beaten up badly by the Amazons, the Facebooks, the Googles of the world, yet, we smaller businesses pay the taxes that are used to give these behemoths an unfair advantage over us.

It makes no sense to those that have a modicum of wisdom.

Your "fund" idea is a good one, but the federal government would need to work in concert with the states to properly effect it in a constitutional sense.

Bobby Tony said:

( January 14th, 2018 @ 4:44 pm )

I agree, Stan. As I understand it not States cannot require a retailer who has no facilities in their state to collect sales tax for internet sales.

The decision is currently in the Supreme Court. I tend to agree that online retailers should pay sales tax for item shipped to other states, but that creates a tremendous burden on small retailers. Amazon and others can handle the state taxation requirements fairly simply but smaller mom and pop shops would need to invest in software to track the collection and payment of sales tax to each state which would put them at an unfair advantage due to the complexity of each state law.

Perhaps the best way to handle this is with a single fund to recieve a set percent sales tax for internet orders and then the fund will distribute to each state based on shipments into that state. This issue as well as the sanctuary issue is increasingly bringing States Rights back into the mainstream discussion. Hopefully, this time we can resolve it without a war.

www.nbcnews.com

Stan Deatherage said:

( January 14th, 2018 @ 12:18 pm )

I wish to go on the record, once again, to state my sell considered position that Amazon shipments should charged NC State Sales Tax now, which is currently the case, and forever into the future.

Amazon already operates in a business climate that is significantly skewed to their exclusive benefit; they do not need any additional benefits.

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