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Re:NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job by grecy on Thursday November 15, 2018 @04:37AM (#18458034)
> I agree, though in this context we tend to term that "competition".

And I'm really happy when there is competition between Apple and one of their suppliers.

What is really sick about what you're talking about, is that it's competition between trillion-dollar Amazon and regular ordinary tax payers.

When Amazon get the upper hand, they get more money, while the tax payers get crappier schools and government programs.

You are literally talking about a corporation taking ('negotiating') bread from hungry people like it's a good thing.

Re:NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job by setr on Thursday November 15, 2018 @05:20PM (#18464018)
If NY is losing money on this, then what you're saying is correct. If they're making money, then the taxpayers of NY are coming out positively. The tax break doesn't exist on its own: 10% of $1 versus 1% of $1000, and the latter is obviously the better deal.

As GP stated, the alternative is that NY doesn't get Amazon's HQ, and gets 0% of $0.

>You are literally talking about a corporation taking ('negotiating') bread from hungry people like it's a good thing.

If you're going to make such an argument, you might as well claim that they should pay 99% in tax, because any lower a tax rate would be "taking bread from hungry people". Of course, this would be stupid: you'd make more money in year 1, the business would go under, and you're now making squat, and all the poor folks go hungry once more (plus the additional of everyone who just got fired). The percentage is not what matters here.

You could argue instead that the overall country is worse off, but the US is a one that encourages state-level competition, and thats how it goes (ideally, states should be efficient with their limited funds, and taxes should be as low as possible to support their various infrastructures; state-competition encourages this, in the same fashion as any other part of the US economy).