South Carolina Publications
Abating Our Future: How Students Pay for Corporate Tax Breaks
Economic development tax abatements given to corporations cost public school districts $2.37 billion in foregone revenue in fiscal year 2019. That’s an increase of 13 percent – a $273 million jump – from just two years earlier and came during the pre-pandemic period of economic prosperity, a new report details.
The losses were widespread: 97 school districts lost more than $5 million each, and 149 districts lost more than $1,000 per student. That left less money for students, who suffered poorer schools, and caused working families to pay higher local and state taxes.
The Revenue Impact of Corporate Tax Incentives on South Carolina Public Schools
Public school districts in South Carolina suffered a sharp increase in lost tax revenue in FY 2019 due to corporate tax abatements: $423 million. This is $99 million, or 31 percent, more than two years earlier. Already-poor school districts lost the most: the six school districts that reported the biggest per-pupil revenue losses also have some of the highest student poverty; four of them have a Black plus Hispanic majority. The costly tax abatements are negotiated by South Carolina's counties pursuant to state law. In this report, we present our findings on the programs, deals, and costs, and offer a menu of policy options to protect the state's most foundational economic development investment--its public education system.
Putting Pension Costs in Context: How Corporate Tax Breaks are Diverting State Revenue Needed for Public Employees' Retirement (Part II)
The second part of this report looks at seven states that are putting corporate welfare before pension security for public employees. $7 billion was spent on corporate subsidies and tax breaks in Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, and Vermont in FY2018/2019. Less than half of that amount would have covered the states' pension system contributions.
Money Lost to the Cloud: How Data Centers Benefit from State and Local Government Subsidies
This report explores state and local subsidies provided to data centers owned by tech giants. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon Web Services have been awarded more than $2 billion. The report identifies 11 data center megadeals with the average cost per job of $1.95 million. It also covers data-center-specific tax exemption programs in 27 states.
Show Us the Subsidized Jobs: An Evaluation of State Government Online Disclosure of Economic Development Subsidy Awards and Outcomes
More states than ever are disclosing company-specific information on economic development subsidies, but the quality of the transparency is highly uneven.
Press release
Full report
Executive summary
Table of links to state disclosure websites
State appendices with scoring details
Prominent studies that purport to measure and rank the states’ “business climates” are actually politicized grab-bags of data. They contradict each other wildly, have no predictive value, and should not be used to inform public policies. This is only the third such analysis of pseudo-social science “business climatology” in 27 years.
The Job-Creation Shell Game: Ending the Wasteful Practice of Subsidizing Companies that Move Jobs from One State to Another
This study describes how state and local governments waste billions of dollars each year on economic development subsidies given to companies for moving existing jobs from one state to another rather. It also looks at how the existence of relocation subsidies emboldens some large companies to demand large job blackmail subsidies to stay put. The report offers policy recommendations to address the problem.
Paying Taxes to the Boss: How a Growing Number of States Subsidize Companies with the Withholding Taxes of Workers
States are increasingly using the withholding taxes of their workers to subsidize companies. This is justified in the name of job creation, but payments often go to firms that simply move existing jobs from one state to another, or to ones that threaten to move unless they get paid to stay put.
Overview
Press release
Executive summary
Full text of report
Appendix: subsidy program descriptions
Spreadsheet list of companies receiving subsidies linked to personal income tax revenue
This companion report to our Money for Something and Show Us the Subsidies studies evaulates state subsidy programs on their use of clawbacks and other penalties in enforcing job-creation, job quality and other performance standards.Press release. Executive summary. Full report with appendices. Full report without appendices. Appendices.
This follow-up to our Show Us the Subsidies report evaluates state subsidy programs on their job-creation and other performance requirements as well as their job quality (wage and benefit) standards. Press Release. Full Report. Executive Summary. Appendices.
In this report produced jointly with Citizens for Tax Justice, we look at Verizon's federal and state tax dodging in general as well as its tax avoidance linked to state and local economic development subsidies.
In this report Good Jobs First reveals that retailers in 26 states are being allowed to "skim" more than $1 billion a year as compensation for collecting sales taxes on behalf of state and local governments. The biggest impact is felt in the 13 of those states that put no ceiling on the amount of compensation any given retail company can receive, thus giving a windfall to the likes of Wal-Mart. Press release
In this extensively researched study, we show that the giant retailer has received more than $1 billion in economic development subsidies from state and local governments across the country. Taxpayers have helped finance not only Wal-Mart stores, but also the company's huge network of distribution centers, more than 90 percent of which have gotten subsidies. The report also includes policy proposals, including a prohibition on subsidies to big-box retailers except in distressed areas that are underserved by retail outlets (and in those cases the recipient of the subsidy should be required to pay a living wage).
Note: Updated information on this subject can be found on our Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch website.
This report examines legislative changes to two geographically targeted economic development programs: tax increment financing (TIF) and enterprise zones. It asks the question: Have laws governing these programs been weakened to permit the use of these programs in non-blighted or affluent areas? In virtually every state that has weakened its TIF or enterprise zone program, the answer is "Yes."
A comprehensive summary and database of 122 state performance audits of economic development programs of the last decade.