DeSmog
Dec 20, 2018 @ 13:56
Louisiana plans to collect no industrial property tax from the $15.2 billion Driftwood liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal planned for its southwest corner, state officials announced last week.
Critics say this tax break is worth $1.4 to $2.4 billion, making it one of the largest local corporate tax exemptions in American history even larger than those offered to Amazon for its much sought-after second headquarters.
Proposed by the natural gas firm Tellurian, the Driftwood terminal, which would liquefy and export 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, is one of over a dozen gas export terminals proposed around the U.S. and fueled by a glut of shale gas released by fracking. The final investment decision for Driftwood is expected in early 2019, as are decisions on two other proposed Gulf Coast export terminals.
Missouri offered double the incentives, but Urban Outfitters chose to build in Kansas Kevin Hardy and Allison Kite, The Kansas City Star
Dec. 22 When Kansas City lost its bid to land a massive Urban Outfitters distribution center this summer, Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote to city staff, congratulating the negotiating team for holding the line when negotiating incentives with the company.
The mayor said the Port Authority of Kansas City, which led those talks, was determined to not give away the farm, even with competition from other cities.
What was not publicly known at that time were details of the various incentive packages offered on opposite sides of the state line. In Kansas City, Port KC offered about $125 million in total incentives to lure the $400 million project.
A day and a half.
That s how much time New Jersey taxpayers had to examine a 219-page bill, which creates a program that could give businesses billions in tax breaks, before Friday committee votes when so many changes were made, it took 142 pages to explain them all.
The changes drove up the total price tag of the bill, from $11.5 billion to more than $14.5 billion, despite concerns from progressives the state couldn t shoulder such a financial loss.
The full Assembly and Senate expect to vote on the bill Monday and send it to Gov. Phil Murphy to sign. He has indicated he would sign it meaning the bill would be posted publicly for about five days before hitting the governor s desk if all goes as planned.
Can Corporate Tax Incentives Revive a Pandemic Economy? New Jersey Thinks They Can.
Under the cover of COVID-19, the stateâs legislature will try to rush through massive tax breaks for big business next week.
Noah K. Murray/AP Photo
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy during his 2021 budget address, August 25, 2020, at SHI Stadium at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey
After more than a year of scandals, and
new revelations about New Jerseyâs corporate tax incentive program, the stateâs governor has announced a new, even bigger program to be voted on less than a week after it was announced.
WARN
Act findings highlight job retention deficiencies with PPP, and workers pay the
price
Greg
LeRoy, Good Jobs First
More
than 190,000 American workers have been laid off since March across 1,900
companies that received loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
The companies intended to support 251,000 workers – instead, they laid off 76
percent of them. About one in eight of those workers lost their jobs
permanently.
Among
the affected workers in 41 states and the District of Columbia, none typically got
60 days’ advance notice of their layoffs and more than two-thirds got no
advance warning at all. Indeed, four out of five of the PPP loans were approved