Amazon packing after South Carolina tax vote

reply to post by celestialpink


Not sure if I would have any advice that would help you. I would pay less myself if I did! In my own personal situation, I pay less taxes on my business income than I do the income I earn from my employer. I was just wondering if the situation was different where you live.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


What are your thoughts then regarding just lowering the taxes on all business so that businesses are fighting to get in, not leave?

The US should be competitive with the rest of the world, not keeping the attitude that everyone will pay what we ask without complaint.

Ideals differ greatly from reality. I don't feel that the US has kept a firm grip on the reality of what it takes to attract and keep businesses.

reply to post by dolphinfan


South Carolina is making a big mistake, this is hurting the people of that great state, I don't blame amazon.com for not giving in and here are my reasons.

I have been buying books from them since they first came on the net back in the nineties.

1. Why would I pay up to $30.00 for a book at a store when I can get that same book for half off or more.

2. I get free shipping when I buy a minimum of $25.00

3. Convenience

4. As a long time member of amazon. com I get special offers from them.

If you order books from Borders, B&N you will pay sales tax if they have stores in the state you reside in, since amazon has no retail outlets no tax unless I am assuming you live in the same state as the fulfillment center there may be a tax or not, not sure about that.

So the company moves to a state that offers 3%. Then another state says, "Hey, we got 2.5% over here." And the next state goes with 2.2%. And so on and so on, until the state appears with no tax. Just to attract jobs. And will that finally be enough? No, the corporations will continue to squeeze blood out of that stone, looking for more and more perks, all the while, playing the poor victim and shaming legislators for "scaring away jobs."

Maybe if anti-trust legislation was enforced we wouldn't have these singularly-powerful entities able to create and destroy thousands of jobs with a single word. I would much rather have 100 10-person companies throughout the state than one 1,000-person employer in one place.

Originally posted by celestialpink
reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

 

What are your thoughts then regarding just lowering the taxes on all business so that businesses are fighting to get in, not leave?

Tax incentives/breaks are a good thing if you want to keep business in your country/state.

Our Gov. Suzanna Martinez took most of the tax incentives away from movie production companies that were establishing in NM. Now they have gone to Canada to make the movies/TV.
What Suzanna did was a union busting move on SAG/AFTRA and ITASE not a cost saving move like she claimed. She kept the tax incentives and subsidies for big oil. GOP strategy all the way; to hurt the American working man/middle class and give all the benifits to big business.gh57

reply to post by dolphinfan


You have absolutely no idea how far cities and states bend over backwards for major corporations to entice them to bring their business to them. Amazon was trying to "have its cake and eat it too" in this situation - and I'm sure this is just an escalation of the bidding process that I doubt will end here. At some point, these tax breaks just turn into fealty payments to a corporation, and I don't know if you are aware of this, but city officials are highly answerable to their constituents.

This is what happens when there are low tax alternatives to people or countries. Its why folks are moving jobs out of high tax, high labor cost states and its also why jobs move over seas.

By all means, please form an organization of you and like-minded professionals, declare that you want zero benefits, 7 day/60 hour work weeks, only the poorest working conditions, and a maximum rate of .15 cents an hour. Then you'll finally be competitive in a global economy!

I am anxiously awaiting to see how well you fare in this utopia where mega corporations control every aspect of your life and your entire safety net.

Freedom works both ways and folks are going to continue to vote with their feet on these tax issues.

Raising taxes sounds great. It sounds simple. It sounds fantastic until the ramifications of high tax rates become known

Lol. South Carolina is gaining a seat in reapportionment, so obviously people are voting with their feet and they are voting that South Carolina is doing something right.

This isn't "high taxes". This was a sales tax special exemption for Amazon - meaning Amazon would get an unfair advantage as opposed to all of those other ecommerce providers in the state. Tax rates are historically low in the US - everywhere. Personally, I think they should go back to Clinton era rates. You know, when we had a surplus and all that...

reply to post by celestialpink


I dont think we should try to make ourselves competitive with the rest of the world. Thats craziness. The competition is heavily overpopulated, incredibly poor nations whose people have been living in squalor. Why do you want to go there? China has been subsidizing (paying for) industries to undermine competitors, and doing all sorts of shoddy and dangerous stuff to keep costs down. Why do we want a race to the bottom?

Globalization will result in a more even playing field for people. (meaning wages across the globe will even out) But it wont be an even playing field for corporations, because oligopolies and monopolies can lock out incoming competition especially when they are big and powerful enough to control governments and have laws written that favor them.

No. We need to make the painful decision to begin, industry by industry, of throwing corporations out who do not play ball with us. It should be a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitic one. Corporate America has had 18% gains in profits this year. Our tax policies arent hurting them. At all. They just want more. And thats the nature of the beast. They are required by law to maximize profit, and they do. No matter what it does to people, communities, nations, or the world.

Someone needs to have some sense here, take the time to understand the requirements of a free competitive market and ensure that actually exists. In the US, it does not. And not because the government is regulating and taxes corporations out of business, thats not the case at all. It has never been free-er for them. THEY are regulating US. By pressuring politicians to stamp out the right of humans to "incorporate" into unions, class action suits etc. They are skewing the game in their own favor and against us.

Lets not forget that this crisis we are in was caused by lack of regulation, and corporations, and we the people bailed them out, and while they are making record profits while America is swirling down the toilet in large BECAUSE we bailed them out, (and are stabilizing the mid east for them to extract resources) they arent doing anything at all to repay the favor by bailing us out with their record profits.

We dont need them. Not only do we not need them, they are bleeding us dry. We are a big enough nation that we can rebuild without them. Their adventures overseas will not fare as well without us, because a lot of what they are doing overseas is profitable BECAUSE of us. And either they will come crawling back, or we will just grow new companies to take their place. And we can.

We SHOULD have let many of them fail. It would have been rough, but it will be anyway. The difference is, now it will mostly be rough for the US and the people, and if we had let them fail, the pain would have been more evenly distributed and we wouldnt have been at an enormous disadvantage like we are now.

reply to post by OhioPariah


It does no good to enforce taxes on businesses if at the same time incentives are given to relocate out of the country and bring goods into the US tax free. More of the multi-layers of beauracy where everybody loses except of course companies who relocate out of the country. The US is sinking like the great Titanic a fire burning but lets not talk about it and deal with it. Just let everyone enjoy the ride.

reply to post by redrose123


Precisely why imports need to be highly taxed, as the founders wanted. Oh crap, I'm becoming a Tea Partier.

reply to post by Avenginggecko


It is pretty common knowledge how states and cities court companies to move/stay. Its done every day. Does it amount to extortion? No more than telling the car salesman that if he does not meet your price you'll go down the street. For 10 years I was told to keep a gent on my team (by the CEO) because his uncle was a State Senator. Our firm had worked a solution to a complex state tax matter that required regular approval by the senate and this gent loved his nephew. We gave him make work job, despite the fact that he was a bonehead to maintain our favorable tax status. When his uncle died, he was canned. Every company that moves does this negotiation. Boeing out of Washington, Catepillar out of Illinois. Why should'nt companies shop for better deals?

Today's successful companies are knowledge based. They can move anywhere. Back when the US government was hammering Microsoft on the anti-trust front, they bought a couple of thousand acres in British Columbia. Knowledge workers (and the patents that go with them) can move across the border in a second.

These firms can and will do what ever they can to get the cheapest deal they can and thats what they should do. We can either recognize that todays firms are nimble and flexible and can move easily within or outside of the country or we can sit back and the only businesses that will be in high labor cost states (primarily blue states) will be fast food joints and mini-markets.

There is a reason the tax bases in these places has been dropping like a stone.

If you lived on the border of California and either Nevada or Arizona and were going to start a business, where would you put it? How about Washington or Idaho? When its your money, California does not look all that attractive.

Originally posted by dolphinfan

I Does it amount to extortion? No more than telling the car salesman that if he does not meet your price you'll go down the street.

Wrong. A consumer of cars does not exist at the pleasure of the car salesmen. Our businesses and corporations exist at the pleasure of the people of the United States.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
For 10 years I was told to keep a gent on my team (by the CEO) because his uncle was a State Senator.

In a perfect world, you should be in jail for that.

reply to post by dolphinfan


The interesting thing about this was that South Carolina did not raise taxes. They, instead, refused to give Amazon a special exemption that they were demanding in exchange for them bringing their business to the state.

Granted, your point still stands as far as companies and people doing everything they can to avoid taxes, but at the same time there is something to be said about a company that swaggers into town and demands special treatment because they're the 500 lbs gorilla in the room.

What it comes down to is that government spending needs to get a hell of a lot smarter right quick.

Until we stop wasting money on absurd military misadventures, we are always going to come up short when it comes to providing the fundamental infrastructure necessary to have a strong, competitive nation.

reply to post by dolphinfan


You are right about companies being able to move pretty much where they want today and the reasons vary.

A friend of mine owned a company in San Mateo, Ca. plus he also owned the building.

He wanted to build small cover at the entrance in case of rain etc. He got estimates to do this for around $10,000.00.

It happens to be in San Francisco County and they came along and said if he wanted to do this they were going to charge him $100,000.00 in permits and taxes to add to what amounts to nothing more then an awning.

Since my friend can do business anywhere he said no, sold the building and moved his business to Wyoming where they were and are business friendly.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Actually, business have relationships with folks who buy their products, not where they happen to be located and those folks are all over the world and increasingly in the developing nations. These firms are already paying some of the highest corporate taxes in the world (of course their are corrupt practices like GE), they are paying a massive soft taxes in terms of complying with nonsensical regulations like Sarbanes/Oxley and the various and assundry federal state and local environmental and labor regulations.

I live in Hawaii and you would think that there would be a decent amount of corporate jobs in Hawaii since it is the easiest place in the US to service Asian markets and Australia. There is not. Why? Because it is among the most hostile states in the country, thats why. Most of the other corporations have either gone under and have been purchased by mainland banks or have off-shored all of their operations. Fantastic. We now have a state that has natural advantages from a service perspective and its a state with folks working in hotels and retail shops. In that instance, folks have multiple jobs. Why? Because if an employee has 20 hours of work, even if it is your only employee, you have to provide him with full medical and workmans compensation. Now all of that sounds good until you're running the books, then it makes sense to hire three gents to fill up the 40 hours rather than 1. Either that or pay them under the table. The percentage of people here who have multiple jobs to make up their 40 hours or work under the table is amazing.

On the jail front, in a perfect world, the state would not have confiscatory tax policies that required you to create dozens of legal entities, leasing facilities back and forth to each other, selling services from one department to another and all of this left pocket/right pocket bs that every firm does today. As it stood, the gent had a job. He did some work, albiet not that effectively. What his uncle did or did not do is impossible to ascertain. We were pretty certain that he would look favorable on a firm that his nephew work for. Considering that we were saving several million a year in taxes, the $50K the gent was making was a pretty good hedge.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
We were pretty certain that he would look favorable on a firm that his nephew work for. Considering that we were saving several million a year in taxes, the $50K the gent was making was a pretty good hedge.

Im sure you did. Which is why you should be in jail for it.

And I was raised in Hawaii, and its no tragedy that it is not a huge corporation magnet. Hawaii has always been a great state to live in human terms.

Either you are not very bright, or you are deliberately fluffing your hand in pretending that regulation and taxes alone are the reason Hawaii is not a major destination for corporations. You have to ignore all sorts of things like the high cost of real estate, the time difference with the rest of the mainland, the cost of shipping in various things, the education, language skills, and culture of the majority population, etc., etc., etc,

Hawaii has never needed to suck up to corporations and only now that the corporatist mindset is spreading like a disease throughout the nation is it beginning to, despite the fact that it doesnt need to.

Regulations and taxes are a significant challenge for businesses located in Hawaii. I know several gents who have actually stopped growing their businesses due to the high labor cost here. He runs a pool cleaning business and it is so expensive to hire folks, he has sold off routes and now does as many pools as he can do himself. Three years ago he had 8 gents working for him. All with benefits, all with workman's comp, all with company provided vehicles. Now those 8 gents are out of a gig because of the inhospital business climate here.

The time zone issue helps, rather than hurts doing business with Asia.

Real estate is expensive - in the places that are destinations. There could easily be lower cost real estate options were the inner island developed. Now that would help everyone, but it can't happen because the taxes and regulations won't allow it and the business environment makes it an unviable place to engage in commerce. Real estate is no more expensive in large part in Hawaii than in New York, Boston, Chicago or San Francisco. The problem with real estate in Hawaii is supply.

The largest ethnic group in Hawaii is caucasian. If you are referring to the Native Hawaiians, of which there are technically very few, they are a small minority of the population.

Oh I get it. Hawaii does not need to or want to cater to corporate interests. Thats fine. There are some elements of that that I like. What I don't like is the 3rd world infrastructure, terrible schools and the poor service you generally receive in businesses. We'll find out how Hawaii's reliance on tourism works when the Japanese stop comming due to their impending economic challenges.

The only thing keeping this state alive is vacation trade,the military industrial complex and the US military. Its a three legged stool and until they get a bit wiser about economics it always will be. Thats cool, until one of the legs on the stool comes off.

It might be a good idea to explore further information before throwing political hand grenades willy nillie. I'm going to sit on this fence and bat them back at the throwers at this point.

From what I'm seeing it was nothing more than an exemption from sales taxes in S.C.. . It sure looks to me that Amazon wants sales tax exemptions for locations in it's distribution center states.

Link

According to Knapp, the state has given Amazon over $4 million in incentives already. He said, "If the state doesn't get that back, it should sue." Amazon is dealing with this same issue in a number of other states. Texas lawmakers billed Amazon for $269 million in uncollected sales tax. Amazon refused to pay. Now, the company has announced it is closing its distribution facility there. There are similar stories in North Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii and now South Carolina.

Link

The Amazon deal was struck last summer as a five-year-old break from corporate income taxes and sales tax collection requirements was expiring. They were put on the books to help win a QVC distribution center. QVC now collects sales tax on goods sold in South Carolina; Amazon would not. The state has no estimate of how much would be gained if Amazon collected taxes on its South Carolina sales or how much would be lost by relying on South Carolinian to continue reporting and paying taxes on their purchases when they file income tax returns. And there's no estimate of what existing retailers would give up to competitor Amazon. That worried Sen. Danny Verdin, a Laurens Republican. "I just don't see where it is a risk worth taking for existing retail business," Verdin said.

Link

Because of the competitive marketplace for gaining new business (and the jobs and taxes they produce), states know they have to offer more than just hospitality and a flat piece of ground with utilities running to it. Corporate palms must be crossed with silver. But once the crossing starts, it really never ends. Bordering states will be making offers, too. When the plums are especially juicy, the offers escalate, which means the market does, too. The next company looking for a new manufacturing site is going to ask for at least as good a deal as the last guy got. So you have to do deals like this, or deals won’t get done. Incentives are a way of governmental life. That said, Amazon’s tax break is a different deal from cutting property taxes to some simple, lump sum (a process known in S.C. as fee-in-lieu), or twisting corporate arms into building a road or similar facility. Let a company get away with not collecting a tax? What’s next? Voluntary compliance with environmental regulation or contract law? In the end, the bed that’s been made is the one in which the state must lie. South Carolina has chosen to offer big incentives to big businesses contemplating a move to the state. It can’t stop now. It’s already on that slippery slope.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
Regulations and taxes are a significant challenge for businesses located in Hawaii. I know several gents who have actually stopped growing their businesses due to the high labor cost here.

And you are claiming that the high labor cost is because of regulations and taxes? Thats a bold faced lie. The high cost of labor is because the cost of living in general is so high. Real estate, most foods are imported across thousands of miles of ocean, including fuel and all goods. Despite what you said about Hawaii being a perfect location for corporations, its actually a horrible one. Because virtually everything has to be shipped in, and because land is in limited supply, which drives up housing costs, etc. Taxes and regulations are the least of the problem in Hawaii in terms of the cost of doing business.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
He runs a pool cleaning business and it is so expensive to hire folks, he has sold off routes and now does as many pools as he can do himself. Three years ago he had 8 gents working for him. All with benefits, all with workman's comp, all with company provided vehicles. Now those 8 gents are out of a gig because of the inhospital business climate here.

Really? Specifically what changed in the last three years that drove the costs of labor up so high? What tax increases or regulations did your friend in?

Because oddly enough, 3 years ago is when the market dived, and in Hawaii the people with pools are the rich. And the rich got their fingers pinched in the door, at least in the short run, by the scam Wall Street was running. Normally, a tax increase get passed along in the form of higher price to the customer. And if the rich people with pools couldnt swallow the sort of modest increase in price a tax hike would add, there is something else going on with said rich persons finances. And since the timing you claim correlates very closely to the market crash, Im going to guess it had a lot more to do with what corporate America was up to than it did with what Hawaii was up to.

We ALL got hit with costs because of the market crash, and the cost of living drives labor cost too, not just taxes and regulations. Food is rising, the cost of lots of stuff are rising and not because of taxes. Because of excessive profit taking on the part of the corporations. The problem with people like you is that you have a one track mind, in that you blame everything on taxes and regulations and you refuse to look at how corporate behavior drives the cost of living, and hence the cost of labor.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
The time zone issue helps, rather than hurts doing business with Asia.

Why on Earth would they have their people in Hawaii where everything is expensive when they can have them actually in Asia? Which is what many of them do. What benefit do you feel they derive from being halfway across the Pacific rather than going the other half way as well and being right there?

Originally posted by dolphinfan
The problem with real estate in Hawaii is supply.

Absolutely. And it would be highly unwise to allow the development of the whole of the Island because a large portion of Hawaii's revenue base is tourism. And no one wants to spend outrageous sums of money to fly out to the middle of the ocean to see suburbs and commercial developments. They can see that at home.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
The largest ethnic group in Hawaii is caucasian. If you are referring to the Native Hawaiians, of which there are technically very few, they are a small minority of the population.

The largest ethic group in Hawaii is people of mixed ancestry. (including Hawaiian in many cases) Not Caucasian. Pure Hawaiians, yes,, there are few who have no other admixture.

www.funtrivia.com...

There is no ethnic majority in Hawaii. 32% of the population are of mixed ethnicity. Caucasians and Japanese each account for about 22% of the population, followed by Filipinos (12%), Chinese (5%), African Americans.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
What I don't like is the 3rd world infrastructure, terrible schools and the poor service you generally receive in businesses.

Tennessee is a very Republican and business friendly state and all I personally think the infrastructure here even in Nashville is worse than in Waianae where I grew up. And as you well know, Waianae isnt the cream of the crop. The schools are not horrible in Hawaii. Judging by the general spelling ability of many of the adults I have run across so far in Tennessee, the schools arent that great here, either.

www.funtrivia.com...
The only thing keeping this state alive is vacation trade,the military industrial complex and the US military. Its a three legged stool and until they get a bit wiser about economics it always will be. Thats cool, until one of the legs on the stool comes off.

The people "wiser" about economics just got this countrys credit worthiness downgraded to the same level as Mexico with their shenanigans. Hawaii is doing much better than a lot of places, and people for the most part are happy there. You may not be, it sounds like you dont appreciate it much, but...........you can always move. If it sucks so bad in your opinion, personally, Im surprised you live there. Especially if the economic policies are such that you cant make a living.