[inoop]

> Does the taxpayer in Buffalo New York benefit if their tax money goes to fund some HQ in Queens, if the bulk of the state's tax capture is just "handed" right back to Amazon?

You have to be exceptionally uninformed to believe that taxpayer money from Buffalo was being used to lure Amazon.

In reality, Amazon was getting a $3bn discount on their tax bill, which would have still come out to $27bn over the same period. The majority of this $27bn would go to the state. Given that western New York gets more in state funding than it pays in taxes, this would have been net positive for Buffalo [1].

Second, Amazon would have brought 25k high paying jobs to LIC, at an average pay of $150k/year. In addition, there would have been thousands of secondary jobs in construction, restaurants, building management, and so on. All that state tax money is now going to Virginia and Tennessee.

[1] https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/oct/14/c...

edit: go Sabres!