Communities clawback corporate tax breaks with non-hiring companies

[Juche]

CHICAGO – Cash-strapped communities have a message for corporations that promised jobs in return for tax breaks: A deal's a deal.

As the economy sputters along, municipalities struggling to fix roads, fund schools and pay bills increasingly are rescinding tax abatements to companies that don't hire enough workers, that lay them off or that close up shop. At the same time, they're sharpening new incentive deals, leaving no doubt what is expected of companies and what will happen if they don't deliver.

"We will roll out the red carpet as much as we can (but) they are going to honor the contract," said Brendon Gallagher, an alderman in DeKalb, Ill., where Target Corp. got abatements from the city, county, school district and other taxing bodies after promising at least 500 jobs at a local distribution center.

So when the company came up 66 workers short in 2009, Target got word its next tax bill would be jumping almost $600,000 — more than half of which goes to the local school district, where teachers and programs have been cut as coffers dried up.

The newfound boldness comes from communities and states that have long bent over backward to lure companies and jobs by offering abatements and other incentives — to the tune of an estimated $60 billion a year in the United States, according to the Washington-based economic development watchdog group Good Jobs First.

The willingness to write — and enforce — the "clawback" provisions comes even as companies across the country struggle and against a broader backdrop of governments getting tough on business practices.

What's more, the poor economy has communities thinking about how the tax breaks they dole out will play with residents who have grown increasingly angry at the thought of anything that hints of corporate welfare.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tax_fights

[DJ13]

1. K&R!

[LiberalAndProud]

2. This is good news.

The tide of trickle-down economic thinking at every level is turning. It has taken 30 years, but it is finally turning. Yay!

[asdjrocky]

3. Rec 5.

[Vidar]

4. K&R.

[notadmblnd]

5. pass this on in an e-mail on to your local community leaders

[Better Today]

6. My thoughts exactly. We are getting creamed around here for these

types of "deals" that didn't come through.

[whathehell]

7. Good Stuff!

[Edweird]

8. Hot Damn! That is awesome. Now if we could expand that to a national level....

I'm thinking Military Industrial Complex for starters...

NAFTA...

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. Excellent. K&R

[MadMaddie]

10. This is exactly what needs to happen

Corporations have been getting away with taking advantage of communities far too long.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

11. This is great news.

:)

[sendero]

12. It's about time...

... cities have been building stadiums and roads and building and handing out tax breaks like candy and getting taken to the cleaners almost every single time.

The rosy scenarios they are promised almost never materialize. Time for some repricocity.

[JoeyT]

13. It's about time.

Virtually every community has a corporation, factory, or retailer they tell the same story about. The community practically pays for the land to be bought and the building to be built, then the company either refuses to hire from the community, or runs the place into the ground so they can close it to create a tax break. It's about damned time the communities started firing back.

[surrealAmerican]

14. Here's hoping this is a growing trend.

There are far too many communities suffering to provide tax breaks to companies who provide nothing to them.