D.C. offered Amazon up to $1 billion for headquarters

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Business
D.C. offered Amazon up to $1 billion for headquarters

By Jonathan O'Connell November 19 at 4:40 PM

The District offered Amazon.com up to $1 billion in tax incentives to open a second headquarters with 50,000 jobs in D.C., probably the largest subsidy ever offered by the city to a single employer but also far less than other jurisdictions agreed to provide to the tech giant.

The package, released Monday by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), offered a combination of discounts on property, sales and corporate franchise taxes over a 15-year period as outlined in a law aimed at luring tech jobs to the city.

Bowser’s office estimated the package’s value at between $488 million and $1.053 billion, depending on the number of jobs Amazon would have created, how many were filled by District residents, how much office space the company occupied and other factors. (Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)

Unlike states including Maryland and New Jersey, which approved much larger subsidies directly for Amazon, all the incentives the city offered to Amazon were available to other employers considered “Qualified High Technology Companies” under a 2000 law, Bowser’s top economic aide, Deputy Mayor Brian Kenner, said in an interview. ... It’s something that every single company that qualifies as a high-technology company could qualify for,” Kenner said.

[Read the District’s proposal here]
....

Jonathan O'Connell covers economic development with a focus on commercial real estate and the Trump Organization. He has written extensively about Donald Trump's business, including how his D.C. hotel has affected Washington and what Trump hotels will mean to the Mississippi Delta. He joined The Washington Post in 2010. Follow https://twitter.com/OConnellPostBiz

[appalachiablue]

1. K & R For visibility. The madness need to end.