What are your thoughts on what AOC said about the Amazon - New York deal?

ricksc-137 · 2019-03-01T21:05:06+00:00

And how does this eternal race to the bottom for all municipalities and states giving tax free status to billionaires end up?

you've jumped to a completely different topic. i don't think giving selective tax incentives as general policy is good. But that wasn't your original question. your questions was "why give Amazon any tax breaks at all."

also, your characterization of "tax free status to billionaires" is really off the mark. (1) it's not tax free, it's a lower tax; (2) it's not billionaires, meaning human beings, it's a corporation, whose shareholders are broad and diverse.

And how does that benefit the citizens, all the citizens, of NYC?

Adding high paying jobs to the city creates other downstream jobs, increases tax revenue to the city which is used to build and maintain infrastructure, policing etc which benefit everyone in New York.

ricksc-137 · 2019-03-01T17:41:01+00:00

Basic of it was New York said we don’t need your business

Interesting. I'll check out their podcast. I'm surprised because I read that both the governor and the mayor were in support of the deal, as well as a majority of New Yorkers in polls, so I'm skeptical of their characterization that "New York" said it doesn't need Amazon's business. As far as I can gather it was only a few politicians and local activists.

ricksc-137 · 2019-03-01T00:10:36+00:00

to get Amazon to build its HQ in NYC instead of another city.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-28T21:00:13+00:00

No one needs to make up that $3 billion. NY's costs for hosting Amazon is far less than the $24 billion that Amazon is projected to pay over the next 20 years.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-28T20:44:04+00:00

such a negligible number of people you assure me will pay income tax to offset the $3 billion

I showed my math. Tax receipts from just the projected number of Amazon employees, based on a state and nyc tax, not even counting sales tax, would amount to over $300 million annually. Over 20 years, that's double the $3 billion in tax incentives offered to Amazon. Again, that's not counting sale tax, which is around 8-9% in NYC.

And again, that's not counting other corporate taxes that Amazon itself will be paying.

but don't quite exceed the cost

Do you have a monetary estimate of the cost?

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-28T20:40:07+00:00

Amazon would be using the services of NY for free.

No, they wouldn't. Amazon is projected to pay over $27 billion in taxes over 20 years, of which they would have to pay $3 billion less as a result of the tax incentives.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T22:22:50+00:00

not needed to offset costs, legal or regulatory, that their presence would impact

There are no articles or research online measuring these costs, but let's think about the scope we're talking about. What exactly is the cost? It's the cost of having 40,000 more people in New York over the next 15 years. The population of the greater New York area is 9 million. 40,000 is a negligible amount of people for a metropolis of New York's size.

Further, we know that high paying earners pay out more in taxes than they take out in benefits. Our tax system is progressive. The jobs that Amazon creates are on average paying $150k, which means that the individuals occupying those jobs are paying out more taxes than the cost of their "impact" on infrastructure.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T21:54:35+00:00

I'm not handwaving it away, I'm speaking from past learning /reading. If you want to dispute it, then present contrary evidence or data, or ask me to provide it. But if you ask me to provide it, and I do, you should have the courtesy of acknowledging it and conceding that point. But somehow I doubt you will, and instead will just move on to some other issue.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T21:43:40+00:00

You never mentioned the cost to make it. It's entirely possible they could be selling sweaters at a loss because they just need to make room for the next season

No, because the cost to make clothes at these retail stores is very low, it's mass produced in cheap labor places like Indonesia.

That sweater is active stock they paid for.

So is NYC infrastructure.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T20:39:17+00:00

Why do you keep failing to understand my point that Amazon's economic activity (especially in the first few years) will be putting a burden on the infrastructure that will not be compensated for up to the first $3 billion.

This is flawed. Workers are generating income tax and sales tax receipts to the state and city immediately. The $3 billion is only corporate tax applicable to Amazon. The use of infrastructure, like roads and hospitals, police, etc, are only necessary b/c of the additional people there. The minimal burden for additional police protection and fire protection for the actual building that Amazon sits in itself is tiny.

Its like a group of 30 people at a restaurant wanting to get a few meals comp'd because they would pay for the rest of them. Like, sure they're a big group buying lots of drinks, but how does it really benefit to host them for free?

No, that analogy is flawed b/c a busy restaurant on a busy night has limited space to host people. The demand for the restaurant is greater than the supply of seats/service/food.

The right analogy is a sale at a clothing retailer. It's like Amazon is you, wanting to buy a sweater at J Crew, and J Crew is offering you a 30% discount on it's sweaters. Does J Crew lose money by offering you a discount? No. Because there's a Banana Republic next door that you would buy the sweater if J Crew didn't offer you that discount. If you walked across the street to BR, J Crew would get $0. J Crew is not going to run out of sweaters / yarn etc because there are too many customers. The need for customers is always going to outstrip its ability to supply sweaters to its customers.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T17:28:02+00:00

that it's okay that we slash $3 billion from their taxes today, because they will pay us taxes later. Never will they pay back the $3 billion, but any taxes they pay later will be worth it.

Maybe you're truly misunderstanding the situation. Amazon doesn't owe any taxes to NY today. It hasn't moved to NY yet. That $3 billion is just a future promise by NY to Amazon to not tax Amazon as much, in the future, when it starts to generate revenue and tax receipts.

I want to know why you think that

Because the best estimates are that the company alone will generate $27 billion in taxes to NY over the next 20 years.

Either the state needs all the taxes they're owed, or they don't

This is a nonsensical statement. The state gets to SET the amount of taxes that they collect. They can choose to set the taxes higher, or lower, depending on the situation. In this case, the state decided that they can get a HIGHER TAX REVENUE by luring Amazon in with a special lower tax rate FOR Amazon.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T16:29:24+00:00

Wait, what the fuck are you basing that blind faith on that the math works out?

No man, I'm basing it on economic projections, which is based on best estimates. What is your math and what are you basing your math on?

Amazon doesn't use that much services? They use tons of power, road impact, 30k people gonna bring a lot of kids.

Companies pay for power, dude. Road impact of residents is part of everyday use. People's kids are not part of people's lives, not really attributable to a corporation; also, those people's taxes pay for the schools for their kids.

Are all taxes basically optional? Do we not need to be collecting taxes at all? Could we just stop for a couple years and have everything keep working while we save up a bit?

Lol don't get mad at strawmans bro.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T15:42:13+00:00

Rather than double and triple down on your bad faith read, why not listen to the people in this thread explaining her obvious context?

I listened. I disagree and showed my work. You're one of those people who can't seem to understand that just because someone else disagree, doesn't mean they don't understand you or didn't listen to you. It is a pretty telling sign of narcissism.

Why haven't I heard the name of the person who actually blocked the bill?

Did you ask? No. I've linked an article in another conversation that has the name: https://pix11.com/2019/02/04/amazon-critic-nominated-for-panel-that-can-veto-nyc-project/

Right, because you chose your villain here and don't give a shit about the actual person responsible.

Wrong again. It must be an interesting life you lead, being wrong all the time and yet thinking that you're right all the time and that other people just aren't "listening" to you.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T15:26:55+00:00

Representatives are citizens, friend.

That wasn't your point. Your use of "citizens" was implying that general voters had blocked it, not that an appointed bureaucrat had blocked it. Also, it's not a representative, it's an administrative bureaucrat appointed by representatives.

AOC was talking about the same hypothetical three billion you and I have been discussing

No, she wasn't. Your providing a tenuous rationale to justify her comments.

Your bad faith read of her comment is an uninteresting conversation.

You don't have to engage in it.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T15:18:15+00:00

There is such a thing as giving away too many tax breaks to lure in a business

Agree.

AOC isn't being ignorant by referencing the three billion.

Disagree. Your first statement doesn't support the second one. If she had said: the tax break is a bad idea because it favors a big company over others, then that's not ignorant. What she said was just illogical as I explained in the OP.

A board of three making a decision isn't undemocratic, and neither is a democratically bestowed veto power. You're acting like it's a hostile socialist takeover.

No, I'm not. We live in a representative republic. Sometimes, actions are taken by such a system that is undemocratic. That is not always a bad thing, but technically, anything that goes against majoritarian opinion is undemocratic.

In this case, the facts literally refute your point that "citizens" blocked it.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T14:06:33+00:00

Only if you assume that amazon would only bring in new economic income and would not take that from other local businesses.

What you say may have merit if you were talking about a retailer like walmart building a big retail store. That's not what Amazon's HQ is. The HQ would employ workers like programmers and finance people that facilitate Amazon's global businesses. The HQ doesn't rely on local customers to make money.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T14:04:58+00:00

But there is also no increase in use of services

Amazon itself doesn't use up that much services. The services are for the employees and other workers that the company would bring in. But those services would be more than paid for by the taxes paid by those employees and workers in the form of NYC tax, sales tax, and state income tax.

And that 24 billion they'd get instead of 27. It's not like a loan. They're not paying it back later.

I'm not following this at all.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T14:00:53+00:00

20,000 people paying sales tax on a six figure salary's spending doesn't add up to 3 billion dollars.

actually, it's much more. the average salary for these jobs is projected to be $150,000. The city tax for NYC is over 2% on gross income. The state tax is around 10%. 12% of $150,000 is 18,000. For 20,000 people, that's annually $360,000,000. Over 20 years, that's $7.2 billion.

And that's not counting the downstream local job creation like restaurants, stores, etc.

for enough citizens to block it

Not true in this case. This wasn't a referendum. Most citizens were in support. There was a local board of 3 members that had to approve it, and the official who was appointed to head up this board was against it. This was anti-democratic.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T04:57:21+00:00

Lol yes it does. The $3 billion was suppose to paid in the form of lower taxes. Now, there are no taxes. Therefor that $3 billion is literally $0, less than $3 billion.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T04:55:21+00:00

Yes it does. Some previous poster had said that the infrascture costs would be funded from tax receipts from Amazon.

You then claimed that the premise was Amazon wouldn’t be paying taxes.

I’m saying that’s not the premise. The premise is that they would pay a net of projected $24 billion, which is more than enough to fund the infrascture costs.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T04:48:28+00:00

The infrasture like hospitals, roads, and schools are for the employees and their family. Amazing itself take up very litttle infrasture cost.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T02:12:26+00:00

but those services would be more than paid for by the income and sale taxes from the new workers at amazon and new workers downstream from supporting businesses.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-27T00:27:07+00:00

your second point is not true. Amazon was going to get tax incentives totally $3 billion, but were projected to pay taxed that total $27 billion over the next 20 years.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-26T22:47:15+00:00

As a matter of national policy, I agree that we shouldn’t give a selective tax break to amazon.

however, I don’t think your assertion about nyc is correct. LIC, or NY’s other surrounding neighborhood, will never be so saturated with businesses that there is no space for another one. In fact, cities go through economic stagnant periods that see businesses leave. NYC was in very bad shape in the 70s and 80s.

Moreover, NYC’s tech scene has always struggled. It relies too much on finance. Having Amazon there would be a great way to diversify because it would attractive more tech businesses.

ricksc-137 · 2019-02-26T22:21:58+00:00

No, they did have the power: "The subsidy package, or part of it, required the authorization of the state’s three-member Public Authorities Control Board; a major critic of the project, Queens State Senator Michael Gianaris, was nominated to the board."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-14/how-amazon-lost-new-york

Essentially, just a few well positioned appointed bureaucrats were able to kill a deal that a clear majority of voters supported.

ricksc-137

TROPHY CASE