The answer is extremely simple:
Without tax abatement, most employers can make a lot more money moving elsewhere.
States like NC are, literally, giving manufacturers free buildings. And, here, we complain when they get a tax break.
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THey have to stop.
By allowing IDA's to continue you are just enabling what is wrong with NYS.
HIGH TAXATION and uncontrolled spending.
You are also allowing for the politically connected/supporters to operate their businesses at an advantage. YES anyone can apply but that is not an answer. IT's a an excuse to justify IDA's.
States like NC, Texas etc don't straddle an onerous yoke over the head of free enterprise.
We fight for scraps and each other while other areas attract business.
The answer as to why it is so out of whack starts with Rockefeller in my opinion. We have cultivated a government monster suckling folks on each side of the nipple...
IDA's are a waste unless it is regional... then again that would go against the fragmentation so necessary for government to exist here.
IDA's are necessary to compete against other states because like therising said, they are all trying to lure them so we have to play the game somehow. Even if NYS was more competetive overall regarding taxes, we'd still need some sort of IDA.
I'm totally against the way we have an IDA for every freakin town around here though. We should have only 1 IDA for the entire Buffalo Metro. Local towns and cities should not be competing against each other when it's all the same workforce.
Here's some background I found:
Tennessee offered about 500 Million Dollars worth of incentives to lure Volkswagen to Chattenooga. A record high for incentives! That beat out the previous high of $420 million given by Georgia to Kia Motors.
http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2...largest-state/
But unfortunately, they'll be losing Saturn.
IMO- All of the IDAs prolong the attitude of helplessness in WNY. Building new buildings and leaving the old vacant costs the tax payers more money but developers still make a profit. It's a lot like the banking industry, which took care of itself at the expense of those who owed them money. WNY won't change until the community stops waiting for someone else to create prosperity. That means stopping the give aways.
IDA's should only be used to lure businesses into our area from out of state. but then again no. Why? I don't need my competitor coming into the area being able to run their business with an unfair tax advantage I don't get. Know what mean? I could see for a large scale manufacturing plant because your really not competing with someone at that level like a chain restaurant would against a local restaurant.
You want a level playing field and that's totally understandable. And ideally, no govt from any state should offer any incentives. But that is not the reality. With other states offering massive incentives to lure thousands of jobs, new york HAS to play the game as well. We're already at a disadvantage with our taxes, but even if our taxes were average we would still be competing against these incentives.