[microcolonel]

> I suspect I'll never get why the notion of giving a tax handout to a company that's one of the most valuable in the world shouldn't be a non-starter.

I mean, it's pretty straightforward. When you set your basic taxes high enough, it no longer makes sense for some people to do business in your jurisdiction rather than another, so in order to convince those businesses to do business in your jurisdiction (and still generate revenue), you must reduce the effective tax burden on that business.

If you do not reduce the effective tax burden, they will leave (which is what you see).

The fact that some other businesses are willing to have some offices in your jurisdiction at full price is neither here nor there.

Use empathy to predict the behaviour of people under your system, and use accounting to get the figures; it is not difficult to see why tax incentives make sense in a place like NY. If you don't want to see your state and local government pander to individual companies, then lower the cost of doing business for everyone in the state.

[Nasrudith]

Tax rates seem to be a want bonus compared to their actual needs anyway. If it was really as big a factor as pundits claim we would see a lot of jobs in unincorporated areas - yet instead they are in places where populations and infastructure are. Essentially it is a reverse of why there is a sticky price point of items disconnected from actual price - it is what the market will bare.

If the fundamentals of an area are good the appropriate response to people demanding concessions leaving is "don't let the door hit you on the way out".

[microcolonel]

> Tax rates seem to be a want bonus compared to their actual needs anyway.

All else being equal, companies should really be doing what is right for themselves. If it's more costly to be in your community, then your shallow assumptions about their "actual needs" do not, and should not, factor in.

[aetherson]

Doesn't the fact that Amazon did in fact leave kind of prove you wrong?