Tax Incentives Are a Game We Can’t Win
Today, Show-Me Institute Research Analyst Christine Harbin appeared on the Sarah Steelman Hour radio show in Springfield, talking about tax credits in general and, specifically, the proposed credits for the Ford plant in Claycomo.
Economic development tax incentives, no matter how they are packaged, are not effective. They allow government officials, who have no special knowledge of how to maximize growth, to pick winners and losers in the market. As Show-Me Institute Executive Vice President Joseph Haslag has written before, lowering broad tax rates is a much more efficient method of stimulating the economy than targeted tax credits. This allows everyone to benefit, rather than a few select industries chosen by the state.
Empirically, studies analyzing the benefits that development tax credits deliver in comparison to their costs show that such tax credits have not worked. A recent Missouri state audit report found that tax credits are less effective (and more expensive) than their proponents claim. Yesterday, St. Louis Public Radio broadcast a segment featuring a study that examined another form of tax incentives in Missouri, tax increment financing (TIF). Kenneth Thomas, a political science professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, recently coauthored a study that found the use of TIF is not effective in most cases. He noted that the St. Louis area uses TIF more than nearly every other area in the nation. In the interview with St. Louis Public Radio’s Matt Sepic:
Sepic: That’s one longstanding criticism, is that TIF pits communities against one another. A prime example is that tussle between Bridgeton and St. Anne over a Walmart. Is that a bigger problem in the St. Louis area than elsewhere, with this panoply of municipalities that we have here?
Thomas: Oh, yes, certainly having more municipalities makes the competition more intense.
The study argues that, although many economists have found TIF to be ineffective, this method of funding continues to be used because of the competitive nature of tax incentives. When one area offers a tax incentive, other areas nearby often try to “win” a company’s business by offering competitive tax incentives. The result is a bidding war in which the taxpayers lose. This can be seen in the Claycomo Ford tax credit situation, as well — other states, like Kentucky, have offered tax incentives to Ford in an effort to persuade them to relocate their plant. In order to compete, Missouri would have to offer a better deal, while recognizing that this game will be played again the next time the credits run out.
Later in the interview, Thomas notes an important misunderstanding — the idea that tax incentives like TIF “create” jobs:
Thomas: [T]hose estimates never take into account the fact that, well, yes, we are going to create 200 jobs here, but what’s going to happen is we’re going to knock out 180 in the next mall over.
Tax credits and TIF tend to shift economic activity from one area to another, without creating wealth. Missouri’s tax dollars would be much better spent in the hands of individual Missourians than on enticements for companies like Walmart or Ford.
As Milton Friedman pointed out on his PBS TV series “Free to Choose,” even if other nations, states, or localities offer tax incentives to lure businesses, we’re better off if we don’t do the same — because we benefit from the lower prices their subsidy creates. Missouri will experience better economic growth if it unilaterally removes itself from the tax incentive bidding wars.
