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Oregon Residents Riled Over Virtually Staff-free Data Centers Getting Tax-breaks
An anonymous reader writes: The population of Hillsboro, Oregon is becoming vocal about the state's enterprise zone program offering enormous tax concessions to companies setting up data centers in the region — even though the five-year deals on offer only require data center operators to employ one person. That's exactly as many people as one DC plant, Infomart Portland, employs full-time, yet it gets more tax relief than highly-staffed enterprise zone neighbor Solarworld. The current influx of data centers to Hillsboro have only generated seven jobs to date. More installations are coming, and all Hillsboro residents are seeing is space taken up that might have gone to businesses that give something of benefit to the community.
I've actually lost count how many megachurches have been built on farm land in Upper Marlboro, MD. I assume the land must be cheap, as we have The First Baptist Church of Glenarden, which was built just 1.2 miles from Riverdale Baptist Church. And it's not to be confused with the First Baptist Church Upper Marlboro, which is about 8 miles away as the crow flies.
All of these are non-profits, so there will likely never be any more tax revenue from them, and unless they also have a school (which Riverdale does), it sits nearly empty for most of the week.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
As long as people are stupid enough to give megacorporations tax breaks for nothing in return ...
It is really a prisoner's dilemma. The states would all be better off if there were no tax breaks. But if the other states defect, they win unless you defect too. So everybody loses, as it turns into a race to the bottom. The states would all be better off if they had a mutual agreement to stop the preferential subsidies.