Champion Tax Avoider GE Gets Subsidized Relocation to Boston

On Wednesday, General Electric announced that it was going to relocate its headquarters from Fairfield, Connecticut, to Boston beginning in 2016. Even without the headline, you probably already guessed that the relocation was subsidized -- in this case, by both the state of Massachusetts ($120 million) and the city of Boston ($25 million). 800 jobs will move as a result of the deal, but no new jobs will be created.

Massachusetts has been historically a low-subsidy state, helped in large part by its highly trained workforce along with the Boston area's 55 universities and colleges, the latter factor noted prominently in GE's announcement of the move. Yet this is the largest subsidy package ever assembled in the state according to the Good Jobs First Megadeals database (download the December 2015 spreadsheet version here). In fact, the database shows that it is only the fourth package over $50 million in Massachusetts, and the very first above $100 million.

I asked Greg LeRoy, the founder and Executive Director of Good Jobs First, for his thoughts on the deal. His response:

GE’s press release is almost worth bronzing and mounting: the company clearly chose Boston because of its executive talent pool and research assets. Why on earth the state and city felt they had to throw $181,000 per job at the company is beyond me; that’s unconstrained federalism at its worst.        

 This dynamic is one I have discussed often: a company threatens to move to another state and suddenly you have an auction with numerous other states trying to pay a relocation subsidy, while the home is doomed to pay a retention subsidy as a best-case scenario. Frequently, as with GE, the company moves. Either way, collectively the states receive less tax revenue from the company which threatened to flee. Thus, the common question, "Was this a good deal for Massachusetts?" completely misses the point, which is that the country as a whole is worse off, due to the decreased tax revenue for no new jobs.

In this case, as I reported last summer, GE threatened to leave Connecticut over tax increases in the state budget. This is ironic/hypocritical/outrageous (take your pick) because, as the Hartford Courant (h/t Richard Florida) reported, General Electric pays only the minimum Connecticut corporate earnings tax of $250 per year. The Boston Globe (see first link in this post) reports that GE pays essentially no state corporate income tax in any state!

It's tiresome to report yet another egregious example of this kind of corporate blackmail. It is depressing to see Massachusetts, with only 4.7% unemployment in November 2015, give its largest subsidy package ever under such circumstances. It's past time for Congress to solve the job piracy problem once and for all.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

GE threatens to leave Connecticut UPDATED

A non-blogging friend has brought to my attention the fact that General Electric is threatening to move its corporate headquarters out of Connecticut in response to proposed tax increases in the state budget. The company, based in Fairfield, objects to increases in the taxes for data processing and corporate headquarters. Insurance companies Aetna and Travelers have also issued similar threats.

In GE's case in particular, this is pretty rich. The New York Times reports that GE made $14.2 billion in 2010 and received a federal tax refund of $3 billion. It is a company that touts bringing manufacturing jobs back from China but conveniently omits mentioning that the new jobs, in Louisville, pay $13/hour rather than the $22/hour they paid before they left for China. A model of corporate virtue it ain't, yet President Obama sees fit to lean on chief executive officer Jeffrey Immelt as one of his top business advisers.

Regular readers no doubt recall that every time a threat like this is made, vultures start to swoop in to attract the potential relocator to their state with a long list of goodies. So it should come as no surprise that a mere three days after GE first floated this idea, Tampa, Florida, has put GE in in its sights. We've seen this story many times before: Boeing and Sears immediately spring to mind. As always, the possibility of receiving relocation subsidies makes relocation less expensive and makes it more likely that a company's current home will have to give concessions to make it stay. Job piracy and job blackmail are intimately related.

As my friend points out, it's not surprising that Connecticut is running a big budget deficit. In just the past few years, according to the Good Jobs First Megadeals database (March 2015 spreadsheet update), the state gave $313.75 million to Schupp & Grochmal (2007), $89.5 million to Starwood Hotels (2009), $291 million to Jackson Laboratory (2011), $115 million to Bridgewater Associates (2012), and a whopping $400 million to United Technologies (2014). This last deal is fully 20% of the entire 2-year budget deficit facing the state, $2 billion.

A showdown is looming in this newest case of raw corporate power. Yesterday, the Connecticut legislature passed the budget, though leaders signaled a willingness to consider small changes when it comes back for a special session. The same day, however, Immelt emailed employees to let them know a task force had been set up to look into relocation.

Stay tuned!

Update: More evidence that GE is a whiny, hyper-aggressive tax avoider:  http://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-cibes-ct-business-taxes-not-high-0609-20150608-story.html