Quote:
Originally Posted by ruvidu
What I found in 4 minutes.
Primarily, BMW contributes to community development through state and local taxes and fees. This revenue would otherwise not be available if the company had not chosen the South Carolina location in the early 1990s. Company records show that total taxes and duties paid for 1993 through June 2008 amounted to $1.9 billion.
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That's wildly inaccurate. Go back and reread what you read.
Here is what the taxpayer originally pitched in. What the taxpayer built:
A property tax abatement or set “fee-in-lieu” of taxes (FILOT), valued at over
$70 million over 20 years
(explained below).
• Labor training through the technical college system valued at
$5 million. This is customized job training
through the special schools division of the State Board of Technical and Comprehensive Education, which
provides training to South Carolinians for new employment made by corporate investment.
• A standard job creation income tax credit (
$300 to $1,500 per new job created)
valued at $2.85 million per
year for up to 15 years. The state of South Carolina has a five percent corporate profits tax. For BMW, the
state established a multi-county industrial park (explained below) with a jobs tax credit for every perma-
nent, full-time job created. In five years at $1,500 per job, this would be worth $15 million for 2,000 jobs.
Unused credits can be carried forward for ten years.
• Industrial revenue
bonds issued by the state that carry lower interest rates than those offered directly in
financial markets.
• A plant site was purchased and then leased to BMW at $1 per year.
The land was purchased by the state,
the Ports Authority, and Spartanburg County. The government agreed to purchase 900 acres of land near
the Greenville-Spartanburg airport
for an estimated cost of $36.6 million; the state committed about $31.6
million, and the local government about
$5 million. In addition to land, the state offered
site improvements
including sewers, utilities, and road improvements such as a highway overpass and commitment to widen
existing roads along Interstate 85. There was also a
$55 million project at the adjacent airport for various
improvements, including lengthening and strengthening a runway to accommodate a fully loaded 747
aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration funded 90 percent of this project; the
state paid for the
remainder.
•
$6 million in revenue bonds issued by Spartanburg County to acquire property and improve utilities.
•
$10 million allocated for road work to improve roads around the plant site.
BMW literally didn't build these things, the taxpayer did.
In return, BMW plant is estimated to have added $1.9 billion to the US economy over the lifetime of the plant, including all of the suppliers to BMW. (not $1.9billion in taxes, lol)
Now that intitial investment was arguably worth it, but without taxpayer money, the plant would not have been built. That was the President's point.
We built that, so that BMW could build that.
But when we cut the funds for the original investments, the companies can't start and thrive like we would want, if at all. If we cut the Federal budget like the Republicans propose, plants like BMW will go somewhere else, and all the economic benefits they provide will go with them. That's what the President was saying.
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