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Towards a just & healthy democracy in the Commonwealth... and beyond!
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Sun Jun 27, 2010 at 16:54:42 PM EDT
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(The GRP candidate for State Auditor makes all-too-perfectly clear the travesty involved in corporate giveaways that plainly don't achieve what they're intended to--at the cost of funding essential prgrams are demonstrably effective. - promoted by michael horan)
The MA legislature's conference committee just made another $300 million in cuts to state health care, education grants, elder home-care services, child care for working parents, human services, and other areas of the state budget for FY2011, conveniently putting the blame on our newest senator, Scott Brown.
Not mentioned in the press releases is the fact that our legislature gave away $300 million they would otherwise have this FY2010 in "single sales factor (SSF)" tax expenditures to Fidelity/Raytheon/related manufacturing corporations for "job creation," even though many of those corporations are actually cutting jobs. According to the Boston Globe, "Fidelity's Massachusetts workforce now stands at a more than 9,000 workers, down from 13,000 four years ago."
As Jill Stein often puts it, these tax expenditures are literally "payoffs for layoffs." In my opinion, they are also the legalized theft of public funds.
Why not use the tax dollars we're throwing away on tax expenditures like these to really create jobs by rehiring laid-off teachers, firefighters, librarians, and health care workers? Why not collect the taxes we would otherwise be due instead of raising the sales tax?
Want to know how the "single sales formula" or "tax apportionment" scam works? Read on. |
| Nat Fortune :: Payoffs for Layoffs Continue As Massachusetts Legislature Cries Crocodile Tears |
Mass Budget and Policy Center: To determine how much of a multi-state company's profits should be taxed in a state, states use a formula that looks at how much of the company's sales, property, and payroll is in the state... In 1994, Massachusetts adopted a single-sales formula (not counting property or payroll), for mutual fund companies, and in 1996 manufacturers also received similar treatment. These changes cost the state about $268 million in revenues in fiscal year 2007 [and $300 million in FY2010].
These arrangements save money for a corporation like Fidelity because its high payrolls and expensive Boston waterfront real estate is excluded from the calculation of its corporate excise tax (a/k/a corporate income tax).
What's more, these special deal "single sales factor (SSF)" tax breaks for "job creation" continue under the radar year after year after year because the legislature only has to vote for them once, and they live forever unless there is a new law to repeal them.
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: Massachusetts adopted SSF in response to threats from the Raytheon corporation that it would reduce its employment in the state unless it was adopted....[but] when SSF is enacted in response to the threats of in-state corporations to relocate in other states, there is no guarantee that these corporations will not "take the money and run." For example, after the passage of SSF, Raytheon cut thousands of Massachusetts jobs.
Raytheon got away with this by firing workers, then raising CEO salaries to increase total payroll expenses. That's job creation? Sounds more like extortion!
http://mobile.boston.com/busin...
http://www.massbudget.org/docu...
http://www.massbudget.org/docu...
http://www.massbudget.org/docu... item 2.401
http://www.itepnet.org/pdf/pb1...
Want a state auditor who will audit these payoffs for layoffs? Please visit http://www.natfortune.org |
| Tags:
sales factor,
job creation,
tax expenditures,
budget cuts,
single-sales formula,
Fidelity,
Raytheon,
payoffs,
layoffs,
Jobs,
(All Tags)
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Green Mass Group is an online forum for Green thought and collective action in Massachusetts. It is a community forum for justice, sustainability, democracy and health in the Commonwealth and beyond.
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| Quotes |
"Now, is this the deal I would have preferred? No. I believe that we could have made the tough choices required - on entitlement reform and tax reform - right now, rather than through a special congressional committee process. But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year. Most importantly, it will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest of America."
--President Barack Obama on the debt ceiling "deal"
"Despite Democratic control over the White House, despite Democratic control over the Senate, despite overwhelming opposition from the American people, a small minority of the members of the Republican-controlled House have successfully pushed an extreme right-wing agenda onto the American political landscape. It is an ideology which believes that despite the fact that the rich are getting richer, the middle class is shrinking, and poverty is increasing, all - all of the burden for deficit reduction should rest on working people."
--Independent Senator Bernie Sanders on the debt ceiling "deal"
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Then and Now
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Then...
"Last year Evergreen, a Massachusetts company, agreed to establish their first-ever United States based manufacturing facility here in Massachusetts. They did so, or are doing so, at Devens. They have now agreed and chosen to triple their size at Devens. Their next phase of expansion, right here in Massachusetts, a signature company in a signature sector, and we congratulate all of the folks at Evergreen and look forward to continuing to work with you...
We made a personal commitment to Evergreen for the sake of Evergreen, but also because we wanted to show that there are ways in which state government, in working together with private industry and with the utility companies, could begin to create a different kind of environment, a different kind of business climate here, to grow that sector, and it is happening. It's happening. Evergreen is one of the most prominent examples, but there are a whole host of examples."
--Governor Deval Patrick, April 7, 2008, boasting about state investment in Evergreen.
and Now...
"Evergreen Solar Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, completing a stunning reversal of fortune for a high-flying alternative-energy company that once seemed to herald a new era for the Massachusetts economy... At its peak, Evergreen employed roughly 900 people locally and attracted more than $50 million in state support, as its stock price soared above $100 a share.
Yesterday, Evergreen's stock closed at 18 cents. The company shuttered its manufacturing plant in Devens earlier this year and now has only 85 employees left. Massachusetts is one of its top creditors, owed $1.5 million in rent."
--Erin Ailworth, Boston Globe, August 16, 2011
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