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What Happened After Amazon's $71M Tax Break in Central New York? 62

Posted by EditorDavid from the start-spreading-the-news dept.
This week Amazon announced that "Approximately 1,500 local Amazon employees will operate and work with innovative robotics technology" at a new fulfillment center that's a first of its kind for Central New York.

Amazon's press release says they've created 39,000 jobs in New York since 2010 — and "invested over $14 billion in the state of New York" — though they're counting what they paid workers as "investing" (as well as what they paid to build Amazon's infrastructure).

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In 2019, Onondaga County (New York) officials unanimously approved $71 million in tax breaks to support the development of a giant warehouse in the Town of Clay... "I am very excited to see this tremendous investment in Central New York coming to fruition," said U.S. Representative John Katko. "The new Fulfillment Center will be revolutionary for our region, creating over 1,500 jobs and making significant contributions to the local economy."

Driving home Katko's point, the press release added, "In April of 2021, Amazon furthered its commitment to invest in education programs that will drive future innovation in the communities it serves by donating $1.75 million to construct a new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) high school in Onondaga County. Amazon's donation will fund robotics and computer science initiatives at the new school [presumably using Amazon-supported curriculum providers]." Unlike Amazon's Fulfillment Center, the new STEAM high school is unlikely to open before Fall 2023 at the earliest, as the $74-million-and-counting project (that Amazon is donating $1.75M towards) to repurpose a school building that has sat empty since 1975 has experienced delays and cost increases.
Amazon's press release notes the company also donated $150,000 to be "the presenting sponsor" for the three-day Syracuse Jazz Fest. And it also touts Amazon's support for these other central New York organizations (without indicating the amount contributed):
  • Rescue Mission Alliance: Working to end homelessness and hunger in greater Syracuse.
  • Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology (MOST): Supporting the "Be the Scientist" program for Syracuse-area public school students to visit the museum and learn about STEM careers and sponsor planetarium shows for area students.
  • The Good Life Foundation, a nonprofit serving youth in downtown Syracuse
  • DeWitt Rotary Club
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What Happened After Amazon's $71M Tax Break in Central New York? More

What Happened After Amazon's $71M Tax Break in Central New York?

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  • The tax break will go to creating automation that will eliminate human jobs

    Well played evil overlord [apple.com], well played

  • Ten bucks here ten bucks there, these guys are really throwing the money around.

  • Amazon's press release says they've created 39,000 jobs in New York since 2010 — and "invested over $14 billion in the state of New York" — though they're counting what they paid workers as "investing" (as well as what they paid to build Amazon's infrastructure).

    I imagine they are also counting everything spent on goods and services. Pay your power bill - "investing".

  • How Many Alternatives? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Sunday June 26, 2022 @09:12PM (#62653040) Homepage

    Where else are you going to find 39,000 people all in a cheap commute (since you don't pay enough for expensive commutes) that have just enough education to handle the work, not enough get better work? That's not a huge slice of the demographic, so you have to draw upon many hundred thousand total population. And, especially, where else are you going to locate that means the warehouse materials are close to the 8 million customers of New York?

    We need not just more organized labour, but organized cities, that hold the line on these bargains rather than racing to the bottom.

  • Was there supposed to be something in here worth discussing, or is it just regurgitated press releases?

    • In other news, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quaking in her jackboots.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That's funny. You're talking about a young woman who scares the living shit out of the elite class. She's certainly not afraid of a little corporate propaganda. Get real.

        Oh, and she's inspiring millions of people like her. She represents the future. Deal with it.

  • You'll owe your soul to the company store.

    Nobody will be able to leave that Amazon company town ever again.

  • This is a tax break for a glorified minimum wage, working your way through college, sort of job. Pathetic that people see this as a âoegreat economicâ event for Central New York. Glad we shipped all of our manufacturing offshore. Globalism at the expense of Americans.

    • That's the tragedy of unemployment: even working insane shifts as robot tenders for a miserly wage is better than being on the dole - in an age when robot should be freeing up humans from toil instead - and local politicians are so desperate to put people back to work that they'll even pay wage slavers like Bezos to come and hire their constituents.

  • was purchased fair and square from the state and local politicians and bureaucrats. Looking at what the public got isn't meaningful. The payments all went under the table to the bureaucrats, politicians and their extended friends and family network and their rich donors. To think the public got much from this is foolish. That is how graft works. And graft is the real business of government.

  • Math (Score:5, Funny)

    by RegistrationIsDumb83 ( 6517138 ) on Monday June 27, 2022 @12:25AM (#62653276)
    Huh... so they gave Amazon a $71M tax break, and got in return $1.75M. ... Good thing they're building a fancy school, maybe they can send the politicians there to study basic math.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, still a better deal than some other things some no-honor politicos sold as great accomplishments.

    • Not exactly. The state minimum wage is $13.20. The sales tax in New York is 4%. Assuming the 39,000 spent most of their earnings, that's $30 million/year in state income. Roughly $360 million over 12 years. Or if you look at the quoted $14 billion over the period, that's $448 million over the 12 years in sales tax. So yeah, the state did well, assuming those people wouldn't have been employed some other way.
      • sales tax is 8 percent, jeff.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

          sales tax is 8 percent, jeff.

          New York City sales tax is 4.5% and the New York State sales tax is 4%. Together, they're 8.5-ish %. Some other items (such as transportation) raise the rate as well.

          • Why would people in Central New York pay New York City sales tax?
            • We pay so that they may live.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

              Why would people in Central New York pay New York City sales tax?

              Because 20% of all my comments are foolishness. However, states within the United States are able to set sales tax maximums. In New York (state) it's 8.875%. Since the state already defined their 4% take of each sale, most municipalities will utilize/collect the remaining balance. Same down here in Texas with our 8.25% sales tax max. You can find municipalities that don't use the maximum sales tax, but most take what they can...

              • Uhm, no the sale tax isn't 8.875%. The combined sales and use tax rate equals the state rate (currently 4%) plus any local tax rate imposed by a city, county, or school district. An additional sales tax rate of 0.375% applies to taxable sales made within the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (MCTD). The combined rates vary in each county and in cities that impose sales tax.

                https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/st/... [ny.gov]

                I used to live in Monroe County, and it was 4% state and 4% county split for a total of 8%

          • On sales receipts it shows that I pay 8 percent sales tax. It doesn't show that I pay 4% to the state and 4% to the city. This does not change depending on my location in the state.
      • Except you have to subtract all the layoffs from the retailers that Amazon puts out of business and the associated loss of property tax revenue from those closed stores.
        • Those properties are typically leased from third parties. Those parties still have to pay the property taxes. That's local though and not state.
    • Maybe they spent more time studying math, not charging 71M /= paying amazon 71M
      The article, the summary ... nothing goes into the specifics of this deal.
      The town gets 0 if the land is not developed. Also some of these NY towns the way property tax works is based on the development, that means if the warehouse cost Amazon 20 million to build, they would pay a property tax on 20 million. It doesn't matter if they chose to put in gold plated doors that cost $100k each instead of standard doors, the tax

    • basic math would show that they came out $1.75 million higher than what they had before.
      nobody lost $71M. if they gave no incentive and amazon passed, and went somewhere else, where would they be? $1.75M less than what they have now.
      in addition to that, minus the school, minus the jobs, and minus the good and bad aspects of having this in the area.

      • Incentives are not a good idea, especially when the incentive will help a company compete against existing local companies. Why does Amazon, the largest and one of the most profitable companies in the world, need free money so they can compete against the corner drug store which has been there for 30 years?

        Look, I'm not opposed to competition, but it is completely unfair for a city or state to give a huge tax break to one competitor but not to the others.

        Saw this happen on a small scale in a city where

        • Big businesses are good at one-sided contracts. They don't need the money, it is a legal bribe to incentivize where they will build. But further than a bribe, it's a competitive bribe - whoever promises the most gets the contract. These sorts of things should be illegal and treated exactly like a bribe or extortion.

    • The state invested $71 Million to generate $14 billion in economic impact in 12 years.

      For comparison, my state's capital is about to drop 2.2 billion on a new stadium that's projected to have a $30 Billion-dollar economic impact over 30 years.

      It could be worse.

      • $71 Million to generate $14 billion in economic impact"

        And what's the down side if the pretend $14 billion doesn't materialize? Do you actually think that big business is honest? Does anyone ever follow up to see if these deals produce any result?

        The answers to the above are nothing, they are dishonest, and the results are ignored the second after the deal is signed.

        Real world example: Tax cut scoreboard: Workers $6 billion; Shareholders $171 billion [cnn.com] The Trump corporate tax cut fueled incredible stock bu

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Well played and deserved the Funny.

      Should have mentioned "division", too, in your joke. Divide and conquer didn't get any mention in the Slashdot discussion, but it's the key to how the evil corporate cancers are dividing and conquering humanity. Racing the states (including nation states) against each other to the bottom. (I haven't checked recently, though I remember an old study that used math to show that the RoI on bribing politicians was higher than any other category of investment.)

      Wish I had a solut

    • You know that a tax break costs no actual money, yes?

      You're trading future potential revenue for actual revenue and jobs. Unless Amazon was already planning to build there, that's $71 million that wouldn't have existed anyway.

  • I wonder what kind of changes we would see if these kind of bribes-with-extra-steps were made unlawful at a national level?
    This would be unlawful if the bribe*cough*, sorry, I meant tax-break, was being awarded directly to the decision-maker, right? I know, there's definitely a difference, but...is it enough of a difference to make the comparison meaningless?
    And, in this case, it's kind of like seeing a city bending over backwards to get Walmart to open a super-store. "Sure! Let's give them a bunch of mon

    • "Sure! Let's give them a bunch of money to open a store and employ people that will then need to receive additional taxpayer money themselves in form of foodstamps, etc!"

      If you're in an already poor town, this does have the effect of bringing outside money into your town from the rest of the state/country via taxpayer-funded social programs. But at the same time, it kills off whatever local business there was. I'm sure it is a net negative.

    • Up here in CNY we call it CNY. Only you dumb fuckers down there think you're special enough to differentiate.
      • The article makes that clear. And you call your own area what you want.

        But a self-proclaimed "Editor" should hope and possibly expect that a story might be read beyond CNY - beyond NY, even - where "Central New York" means something else.

  • "STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) high school"

    So... a regular high school with more fat kids?

    • > "STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) high school"

      One of these subjects is a humanity, and highly subjective. The other's aren't. Why is it being grouped with the other 4? STEM, I can understand. STEAM? Are there rules that are required to be followed in Arts? Are "feelings" allowed in the other 4?

      just asking....
  • I hope the quality of Amazon's education programmes isn't as bad as the quality of the goods they provide. The single biggest factor that affects children's learning outcomes is their teachers' expertise (education & training, experience, & continuing professional development). Will they offer good enough employment terms & conditions to attract expert teachers? Or will they hire newbies fresh off teacher-Ed programmes & throw them into the school with no-one to provide effective guidance so

  • For other taxpayers in this region, which will end up having to pay more to handle Amazon paying less, is this a beneficial trade?

    Or would it be better to provide millions in tax breaks for a different business or businesses?

    Or not provide tax breaks for businesses at all, and instead give tax breaks to people?

    Or give no tax breaks and keep taxes lower for everyone?

    I would love to see the justification by politicians why Amazon specifically deserved this tax break instead of the alternatives.

    • Giving tax breaks to the people is socialism and wrong, unless the people are already well-off.
    • That is my big problem, I hate targeted tax cuts that go to one company . If a state/county wants to attract business they should setup transparent policies that apply to ALL businesses ; even existing ones. I have no problem with a county/state that wants to attract business by offering lower regulations, friendly tax policy but it should be broad based and transparent for any and all businesses to take advantage of, from a mom/pop shop with 5 employees to a mid sized 100 employee business to even larger

  • it's not amazon it's your politicians (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rbgnr111 ( 324379 ) on Monday June 27, 2022 @08:17AM (#62653870)

    if you don't like this, you should really be looking at the politicians you elected, not amazon. They are the ones who gave amazon the tax break, likely because there was something that would benefit them.
    Amazon just happens to be like any other large company. when they want to put in a new facility, All are going to locate facilities in areas where there is enough population, but it's your elected officials that try to sweeten the pot by giving them tax breaks to attract them to the cities they would otherwise likely avoid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GlennC ( 96879 )

      Amazon is only taking advantage of the fact that they are part-owners of the Party.

      You thought that they were making campaign contributions out of the goodness of their heart?

      Prove me wrong.

    • Yup... that's why you always vote for the party that doesn't take major campaign contributions from the corporations... Like umm... well crap, a handful of greens, and maybe some independents? People who didn't raise enough money or capital to get on the ballots. Lets be real here... yes we can try and vote for the least corrupt options we get... but at the end of the day for the most part, we can't do crap about the corporate interests controlling these decisions because, big guys like amazon can afford to

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