Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
What is Texas supposed to do? Offer tax waivers to EVERY business who threatens to take their ball and go home? Or just offer the waivers to the really BIG businesses who threaten to take their ball and go home.
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Potentially: sure. States could reasonably say, "if you promise to create $##,###,###.## in economic activity in our state over the next X years, you are exempt from [Y-type] taxes for that period of time."
Oregon manages with no sales taxes; other states could presumably find other ways to fund their public activities. More jobs = more homeowners = more income & property taxes. More sales, even online sales = more cars, gas sales, more post office activity, more packaging costs, more income taxes for the company itself. A state could look over its budgets and decide that sales tax revenue could be offset by other kinds of economic activity, and encourage those activities by cutting back on or removing sales taxes.
It's not the "goes tax-free" that bugs me; it's the special deal only available to Amazon. If Amazon's going to bring enough revenue to the state that it's worth keeping them without charging sales tax, than so would any company of comparable size & activity level.