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Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by elamje on Friday February 08, 2019 @03:04PM (#19118120)
But NYC cares about tax revenue just like you or I care about income. In one move, HQ2 will bring NYC/NY State a very attractive amount of tax revenue. It is the most logical thing for city officials, who constantly want more funding, to do what exactly what will bring more funding the quickest.
Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by drugme on Friday February 08, 2019 @04:18PM (#19118779)
In one move, HQ2 will bring NYC/NY State a very attractive amount of tax revenue.

How much, approximately?

Or do you just think it will be... "a lot"?

Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by sokoloff on Friday February 08, 2019 @04:28PM (#19118861)
Ballpark state income tax at 6.5% of $250K * 25K = $406M/yr, with city tax on top.

Ballpark property tax at $12K * 25K = $300M/yr

Ballpark state sales tax at 4% of $50K in spending * 25K = $50M/yr

Naturally, some of the property tax is displacing existing property tax payers and some of the income tax will be lost to other employers moving out of NYC area, but it seem quite reasonable to be OoM $500M per year at scale.

Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by jinushaun on Saturday February 09, 2019 @05:25AM (#19121672)
You know you're living in a bubble if you think all 25,000 employees will make $250,000 per year. That is not anywhere close to average.

For one thing, they won’t all be engineers. Cost of living is also lower than SV.

Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by drugme on Friday February 08, 2019 @05:06PM (#19119129)
6.5% of $250K x 25K = $406M/yr,

It only takes a minute or two verify that $250K is a completely unrealistic estimate for the average salary of a likely HQ2 employee. In fact the state's own estimate is around $150k. The property tax estimate is similarly skewed -- on top of the fact that you're ignoring the additional cost of services to support all these people.

I'm not saying there's benefit-to-cost ratio argument to be made in favor of HQ2 (if everything were to boil down to those terms) -- just that you seem to be, well... pulling numbers out of the air.

Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by elamje on Friday February 08, 2019 @05:25PM (#19119274)
What services will cost more for the city? Public transportation will have a ridership subscription boost, property values will go up for local owners, service businesses will have ~25k more potential customers...
Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by elamje on Friday February 08, 2019 @05:53PM (#19119451)
I understand your concern about pulling the numbers out of the air, but I think the commenter above made a stronger case for those numbers than you have with the "cost" numbers. Just a thought to consider
Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by jowiar on Friday February 08, 2019 @06:45PM (#19119702)
For some cities 25k is a big deal. For NYC it’s rounding error.

NYC is big enough to have a healthy relationship with Amazon, and part of that is knowing is that you’re the seller, not the buyer.

Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by drugme on Friday February 08, 2019 @07:02PM (#19119775)
For some cities 25k is a big deal. For NYC it’s rounding error.

The point is that the gain in revenue from income and property is being presented as basically just "free" money. It's not.

Re:Facing opposition, Amazon reconsiders NY headquarters sit... by drugme on Friday February 08, 2019 @05:28PM (#19119293)
What services will cost more for the city?

The usual costs per new resident (that property taxes are normally earmarked for) perhaps?