No they are not. Had to argue with people in Livingston Parish about this when they built Bass Pro. Bass Pro wanted a tax break on the taxes they collected to pay for part of the building cost. People flipped their shite claiming that the schools were going to lose money. But what actually happened is that the EXTRA money generated a smaller amount of EXTRA tax revenue for the first ten years. Sure, the revenue would have been even higher had Bass Pro just not been given the tax breaks, but they probably would've built elsewhere; which would've caused a zero increase in tax revenue.

We can argue the merits of government incentives as it pertains to economic growth and development (I'm more against it than I'm for it, by the way), but that is a wholly separate issue than the question I originally asked.

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Posted by Cold Drink

Member since Mar 2016

3482 posts

Posted on 6/26/17 at 1:17 pm to SlapahoeTribe

quote:
No they are not. Had to argue with people in Livingston Parish about this when they built Bass Pro. Bass Pro wanted a tax break on the taxes they collected to pay for part of the building cost. People flipped their shite claiming that the schools were going to lose money. But what actually happened is that the EXTRA money generated a smaller amount of EXTRA tax revenue for the first ten years. Sure, the revenue would have been even higher had Bass Pro just not been given the tax breaks, but they probably would've built elsewhere; which would've caused a zero increase in tax revenue. We can argue the merits of government incentives as it pertains to economic growth and development (I'm more against it than I'm for it, by the way), but that is a wholly separate issue than the question I originally asked.

Respectfully, I think you are missing my point. Again - I know neither of us are opining as to the wisdom of any particular tax break/spending - so we're good there. What I am saying is that a city not collecting certain taxes is the exact same as the city collecting those taxes and writing a check. Therefore, tax break = spending.

I'm not saying that the spending wasn't a good deal or that the city somehow has less money than they otherwise would; I'm saying that a tax break and spending look the exact same on a balance sheet.

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