"Chamber says more breaks for business will add jobs" by Robert Gavin, Globe Staff | March 3, 2010
The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce yesterday offered the latest plan to revive the Massachusetts economy, proposing tens of millions of dollars in corporate tax breaks that the business group says will encourage investment, innovation, and hiring.
Related: Those Are the (Tax) Breaks in Massachusetts
Yeah, why not keep trying the same failed solution while loosing tax loot upon corporations and people that do not need them.
The tax breaks would eventually cost the state about $165 million a year in lost revenue, but would create an estimated 40,000 jobs over five years and generate enough growth to produce $167 million a year in new revenue from payroll, income, and other taxes, Chamber officials said. The tax breaks offer incentives for investment in start-up firms, equipment, buildings, and new employees, they said....
The Chamber’s plan follows a flurry of new proposals to boost the Massachusetts economy, which had one of the nation’s worst records of job creation over the past decade....
Related: Massachusetts' Lost Decade of Jobs
Yeah, despite all the tax bags of loot.
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So who is getting them while your services are slashed, Bay Stater?
Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., Coca-Cola Co., and a half-dozen other companies could receive tens of millions of dollars in state and local tax breaks today from an obscure state economic development board.
Corporations that are already profitable and which do not need tax breaks.
Meanwhile, you pay increased taxes for what?
But (my first nickel of the day, clink) Massachusetts officials won’t say how much they plan to award the companies — or what the firms have promised to do in return — until after the board votes on the proposals, when, critics say, it’s too late to object.
“This is the public’s business, and it needs to be conducted in public,’’ said Pam Wilmot, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, a nonprofit that has fought for stronger open meeting laws. “Sometimes decision makers want to hoard the information so they don’t embarrass themselves. But that what’s it means to live in a democracy.’’
That is why I keep calling it AmeriKa!
Kofi Jones, a spokeswoman for the state Economic Assistance Coordinating Council, said companies’ applications for the tax incentives “are still internal documents’’ and won’t be released until after the meeting. Staff recommendations on the size of the incentives, she said, are “not public prior to the meeting.’’
The decision comes despite complaints that the council, which awards tax breaks to companies that promise to create jobs in beleaguered areas, has squandered millions of dollars in taxpayer money over the 16-year life of the program. A Boston Globe review published earlier this month found the council routinely approved projects that created few high-paying jobs, delivered many fewer jobs than promised, were located in affluent areas, or would have been built without subsidies.
I linked their piece above, and I notice that despite these articles nothing changes.
The Patrick administration says it is addressing the problems....
By trying to give out more tax breaks and borrowing a billion for biotech losers?
Composed of state employees and gubernatorial appointees, the council has largely operated out of public view. It doesn’t post annual reports, minutes, decisions, or members’ names online, and often doesn’t release even bare-bones agendas before meetings.
At a meeting in 2006, one council member threatened to eject local activists if they tried to comment, saying “only representatives from the company [will] be recognized,’’ according to meeting minutes reviewed by the Globe....
See WHO GOVERNMENT SERVES?
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Wouldn't you be better off without one?
"Tax incentives hit $45m; Liberty Mutual gets the most from state in first round of credits under new rules" by Todd Wallack, Globe Staff | April 1, 2010
A state economic development board approved more than $45 million in state and local tax breaks yesterday for Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., Coca-Cola Co., and about a half-dozen other companies that promised to build or expand facilities and add jobs in Massachusetts.
Couldn't find $3 million in there for Boston's libraries?
The largest award by the Economic Assistance Coordinating Council went to Liberty Mutual, which has proposed building a $300 million office tower near its Back Bay headquarters and adding 600 new jobs. The board approved a state investment tax credit potentially worth $22.5 million and $16 million in property tax breaks from the city of Boston.
For a profitable insurance company.
“This is a huge project,’’ said John Palmieri, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “It creates jobs, and it grows the tax base for the city.’’
Liberty Mutual said the tax incentives were needed to make the project viable....
Regardless, some critics said Liberty Mutual did not need any aid at all.
“This was a completely unnecessary subsidy,’’ said Steve Wintermeier, a Boston investment adviser and activist concerned about rising residential property taxes. “They would have built this property whether or not they got the subsidy.’’
The council can now also help manufacturers in struggling Bay State cities retool their plants to retain jobs. It gave a $1.2 million tax credit to Lightolier, a lighting company owned by Philips Electronics NV that plans to invest $3 million in its Fall River plant and preserve 385 jobs....
Other companies that received tax breaks yesterday are:
Coca-Cola Co., which would receive as much as $774,360 if it expands its Northampton plant to supply chilled juice to the region; the beverage giant is also considering alternate sites in New Jersey and Pennsylvania....
This is all beginning to SOUND LIKE EXTORTION to me.
Related: SJC to hear tax break dispute
And then they tell us the tax breaks do not even work:
"Patrick’s business aid welcomed; But states can’t drive recovery on their own" by Robert Gavin, Globe Staff | February 9, 2010
Job creation proposals floated by Governor Deval Patrick and Beacon Hill Democrats were welcomed by small business advocates as a good start, even though economists said the mix of tax breaks and loans is unlikely to have much impact in turning around the overall economy.
While state economic policies can add to job growth over the longer term, states just don’t have the fire power to reverse national and global trends, economists said. In other words, significant job growth won’t return here until the US economy strengthens further....
And then again, the state policies may grow nothing but the bottom lines of corporations.
