Miami-Dade may lose tax incentives for poor neighborhoods

[d_legendary1]

A state program that local leaders say has created thousands of jobs in economically distressed areas of Miami-Dade County is in danger of not being renewed next year.

The program — which is scheduled to sunset at the end of the year — gives tax incentives to businesses that create jobs in designated “enterprise zones,” areas with high rates of unemployment, poverty and crime.

In the last fiscal year, the state distributed $15.8 million in incentives to 65 enterprise zones across Florida and created about 13,000 jobs statewide. The top recipient of the funds was Miami-Dade, which received $4.7 million, according to state figures. Broward County received about $122,000.

State lawmakers, including House Speaker Steve Crisafulli (R-Merritt Island) and Senate President Andy Gardiner (R-Orlando), have criticized the program as ineffective and have not passed legislation to extend it.

Supporters maintain that beyond the number of new jobs, the enterprise zones also encourage neighborhoods and businesses to grow by creating new infrastructure.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article17148977.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. That's a heck of a good ROI.

In the last fiscal year, the state distributed $15.8 million in incentives to 65 enterprise zones across Florida and created about 13,000 jobs statewide.

That's just over $1200 a year to create each job. If they're full time minimum wage jobs, that's 13000 people with something like 15k a year in pocket that they didn't have before that they're all spending right back into the economy. I certainly wouldn't call that 'ineffective'. I'd call it amazingly effective.

[d_legendary1]

2. Its a perfect example of how tax breaks are supposed to work

Spend on the working class and getting a tax break is 100x better than getting a tax break for off shoring jobs.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Exactly.

The devil is always in the details, as it were. Tax breaks for corporations are not inherently evil, it's just how they're mostly used that makes them pointless other than to make rich folks richer. The fact that this break was actually working to help the poor should have made it a poster child for Republicans who want more tax breaks for businesses, not a target for sunsetting it.