New Tools Bring State Corporate Tax Breaks to Light
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Each year, state and local governments give out billions in tax breaks and subsidies to corporations in return for a promise that the company will create new jobs. While most states disclose the names of companies receiving state and local tax breaks, cash grants and other subsidies for job creation, the quality of the reporting varies widely. In fact, about a dozen states are still keeping taxpayers in the dark, according to a new report.
The report, “Show Us the Subsidies,” by Good Jobs First, a nonprofit, non-partisan research center, shows that Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio were found to have the best economic development disclosure.
“With state legislators making painful political budget decisions, corporate tax breaks should be completely visible so spending for economic development should be transparent,” says Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First.
Treasury Dept. Not Looking After Taxpayer Money
President-elect Barack Obama has a laundry list of Bush disasters to clean up after he gets in office, and he says fixing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is among his first priorities. Good thing, too, because the congressional oversight committee charged with examining how the first $350 billion of our taxpayer money was spent finds the U.S. Treasury Department isn’t exactly looking after our money. The oversight committee released its second report in recent days, and The Washington Post sums up the findings as follows:
The report says the department has not articulated a plan for restoring lending to consumers. It asks again why the Treasury has refused to spend any money on foreclosure prevention programs. And it says the department is sowing confusion in the financial markets, undermining the stated purpose of the rescue program, by failing to require companies to report how they are spending federal investments of taxpayer dollars.
