Lawmakers approve tax credit for Mercedes employees leasing luxury cars (Atlanta: buying, pros and cons)

[red92s]

So proud of our local lawmakers, who had the courage to approve several million dollars in tax relief to highly-compensated employes at Mercedes Benz new Atlanta HQ. Now they won't need to worry about paying several thousand dollars in TAVT like every other resident when leasing a new S Class annually. So glad that we've decided to subsidize this instead of electric vehicles or transit options.

AP News : Georgia lawmakers approve last-minute tax break for Mercedes

[Mishap]

Jobs!! Think of all the jobs of people that will now be employed to wash and wax these high end cars. It could mean tens to hundreds of dollars of new payroll annually that we just couldn't get by lighting this money on fire. Georgia means Business!

[Poncey]

There's a cost to play in this arena. If not Georgia; Texas, NC or Tennessee would have certainly paid up for a major Mercedes corporate presence.

Texas awarded Toyota around $40M in incentives for their relocation to Plano. This doesn't include the $millions the City of Plano also awarded.

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by Poncey

There's a cost to play in this arena. If not Georgia; Texas, NC or Tennessee would have certainly paid up for a major Mercedes corporate presence.

Texas awarded Toyota around $40M in incentives for their relocation to Plano. This doesn't include the $millions the City of Plano also awarded.

But this is after Georgia already snagged them; it wasn't part of the original incentives package from what I gather.

[bellhead]

So nice of Mercedes to Georgia lawmakers to evaluate and suggest quality improvements on on S class cars.

[stillinthesouth]

Well, at least they took their time to carefully weigh the pros and cons of this new legislation:

"In the rush, it's possible the Senate violated an internal rule requiring that lawmakers have at least two hours to review legislation before voting."

[Mishap]

I'm actually a little amazed at least 4 Republicans voted against the measure. Given how everything in the state is a rubber stamp along party lines, there are people who may actually stand for a micron of fiscal restraint when it comes to corporate largesse.

Or the more realistic answer is they just didn't get big enough gift baskets from Mercedes.

[YakiTaki]

We live in a corporate world. Is that fascism where they dictate the terms and local gov't enforces it?

[Poncey]

Originally Posted by Mutiny77

But this is after Georgia already snagged them; it wasn't part of the original incentives package from what I gather.

^True. It's obviously something Mercedes-Benz corporate requested. What were GA legislators going to say, no?

M-B recently announced they will manufacture pick up trucks. A new division could mean more HQ jobs.

[Mishap]

Originally Posted by Poncey

^True. It's obviously something Mercedes-Benz corporate requested. What were GA legislators going to say, no?

M-B recently announced they will manufacture pick up trucks. A new division could mean more HQ jobs.

That is a nice 7 figure down payment on a place in line for the next chance to offer them hundreds of millions up front and millions more down the road to put a few hundred/thousand low paid jobs in rural Georgia that will be filled by Alabamans. You don't think they'd actually hook us up w/ a factory w/ just what we've given them already do you? NCR took the city for tens of millions just to move 20 miles into the city after taking Duluth for that much just a few years ago.

I spend pretty much half my week in Plano and they're super aggressive about buying up companies...they have a major street called Headquarters Drive. Toyota is a big deal there but they have the bankroll of dozens of other large companies already in the area as well as the billions the state sits on from oil money. Fighting states like this to hand out the most money to corporations is pointless as we simply don't have the resources to let companies consume resources tax free for decades. Plenty of companies operate just fine w/o added giveaways and we already have one of the lowest tax burdens in the country.