Lawmakers in at least a half-dozen states are considering forming a compact in which they would agree to end efforts to lure companies with tax incentives.
This article by Liz Farmer appeared in Governing, February 17th, 2019.
A brief commentary about this article by Community Rights US Director and Founder Paul Cienfuegos: It’s terrific news that lawmakers in numerous states are considering passing laws that would ban their state governments in the future from offering tax incentives to lure giant corporations. But why are they not going more to the root of the problem, which is that We The People and our state governments are allowing these giant corporations to play one state against another? Corporations are only allowed to play this game because the courts have granted them the Constitutional First Amendment “right” to exercise their so-called “free speech” by lobbying state officials. No corporate constitutional “rights” = no corporate lobbying. Business corporations are creations of the state, and thus, our state officials have the legal authority to define (not simply regulate) what these entities are allowed to do. I laid this out in much greater detail in my recent essay, “When will politicians start exercising their constitutional authority to rein in large corporations like Amazon?”.
— Amazon’s yearlong, nationwide contest for its second corporate headquarters netted the internet retail giant more than $2 billion in promised tax breaks from New York state and Virginia. But after mounting public resistance to such “corporate welfare,” Amazon announced Thursday that it will abandonits plans for New York City.
This, as the End Corporate Welfare Act is circulating in several states, including New York. The bill would essentially call a cease-fire on awarding tax incentives to certain companies by creating an interstate compact of states that agree to end the practice. MORE…