According to Reid Wilson at The Hill,

The incentive package passed by Wisconsin’s GOP-controlled legislature, during a special session last August, will offer the company $1.5 billion to offset payroll costs and another $1.35 billion for capital expenditures. The state will give Foxconn $150 million in sales tax exemptions on construction materials, and it plans to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on road improvements near the new factory.

The town of Mount Pleasant, where the factory will be located, will offer $763 million to help pay for the project, and Racine County gave the company $50 million to acquire the land.

In total, Wisconsin, Racine County and Mount Pleasant gave the company nearly $4.8 billion in tax breaks, incentives and taxpayer dollars for improvements. If Foxconn delivers all 13,000 jobs it has promised, that works out to about $370,000 per job.

This is reminiscent of a similar deal for Carrier manufacturing plant for Indiana, of which my colleague Patrick Ishmael wrote in 2016,

I certainly hope the Carrier “deal” doesn’t presage future deals the President Elect will be cutting over the next four years. The reason is straightforward. In return for not following through on its threat to move, Carrier will receive $700,000 per year from the state of Indiana, for at least 10 years. If that kind of cronyistic deal sounds familiar to you, it should; the Carrier agreement is like many of the “deals” to “save or create jobs” that have been made, and that we have criticized for years, here in Missouri.

Across the country, those hungry for increased economic activity seem to understand that taxes are too high to spur development. Whether it is Foxconn in Wisconsin, Carrier in Indiana, Boeing in Missouri, or Amazon everywhere, legislatures are bending over backwards to give special treatment to those they deem worthy. Better public policy demands that government stop picking winners and instead lower taxes for everyone.

The post Wisconsin’s Foxconn Deal is Bad Public Policy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That view is wrongheaded on both counts, and I certainly hope the Carrier "deal" doesn't presage future deals the President Elect will be cutting over the next four years. The reason is straightforward. In return for not following through on its threat to move, Carrier will receive $700,000 per year from the state of Indiana, for at least 10 years. If that kind of cronyistic deal sounds familiar to you, it should; the Carrier agreement is like many of the "deals" to "save or create jobs" that have been made, and that we have criticized for years, here in Missouri. As one economist observed after the Carrier deal was announced, "[e]very savvy CEO will now threaten to ship jobs to Mexico, and demand a payment to stay." Yup.

Even with the financial gift from Indiana, it doesn't sound like every job will be staying at the plant anyway, or at another nearby facility that was also slated to be closed. In return for the money, Carrier said it will keep about 1,000 jobs in Indiana, but that about 1,300 Indiana jobs were going to be sent to Mexico anyway, despite the public giveaway.

We have to reiterate: It is not the role of the government to pick winners and losers in the tax code, whether the tax code in question is at the local, state or federal level. More to the point, allowing powerful companies to issue threats as a way to compel public financial support for their private operations is a road policymakers should not go down. Most employers could never dream of getting such generous concessions, and if the tax burden needs to be reduced to make one big company profitable, policymakers, whatever their level of government, should instead work to reduce the tax burden for all companies—large and small, politically connected or not.

Indiana should not export its corporate welfare to Washington DC. If it does, it will be to the detriment of the American public and taxpayer interests.

The post The Indiana Carrier Deal: State Cronyism Shouldn’t Be Nationalized appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Bombardier, the Canadian transportation company, said on Wednesday that it would lay off about 7,000 employees over the next two years, as it struggles to find buyers for a new series of planes that for the first time put it in direct competition with the aviation giants Boeing and Airbus….

While the Air Canada sale provided important help for the CSeries, sales of the aircraft remain below levels that analysts generally view as assuring the project’s success. Including the 45 planes for Air Canada, Bombardier now has 288 firm orders.

Making money in business is never a certainty, and yet time and again state and local officials seem to think they have a special insight for picking moneymakers when they don’t. Whether you’re talking about developing a hotel, a stadium, an airport, or something else, the incentives of politicans often diverge greatly from the long-term interests of the communities they’re supposed to represent. It’s fun to cut the ribbon at a groundbreaking and get your picture taken with a hard hat on, but who ends up with the bearing the burden when an incentivized business goes belly-up? Taxpayers, that’s who.

Fortunately, it wasn’t Missouri’s taxpayers who paid the price when Bombardier’s incentive-addled business plans crash-landed, and state officials should learn from having dodged that bullet. Rather than riskily cutting deals with a select few, policymakers should invest in every family and business in the state by simply lowering everyone’s taxes. 

The post Bombardier’s Troubles Continue As Company Lays Off 7000 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Four years ago, the Show-Me Institute came out strongly against plans to spend upwards of a half-billion dollars to turn Lambert-St. Louis International Airport into an “Aerotropolis.” The plan revolved around the idea that Chinese cargo shipped through Saint Louis could be profitable—but only if the government subsidized it to the hilt. As our readers know, the project died not once but twice that year, and has died each year it has been introduced since.

It’s a good thing it kept dying too, as a story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed last week.

In September 2011, a China Cargo flight carrying 80 tons of manufactured products landed at Lambert and was greeted by dignitaries from across the region. But airport officials said that market disappeared amid a downturn in international cargo. [Emphasis mine]

Imagine if Missouri had committed to the Aerotropolis project and then, poof, the market “disappeared”—which of course assumes it was ever really there. Taxpayers would have been left holding the bag.

The admission about Aerotropolis was part of a larger article about a lease just signed for a new “Mexico Hub” at Lambert, a story my colleague Joe Miller has already detailed. Lambert’s director, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, says that the airport “is not paying a penny” for the new project, and if true, it’s a very good thing. At a time when its passenger traffic is down, the last thing Lambert should be doing is speculating on real estate, especially given its track record.

However, it’s not clear whether the Mexico Hub developer will try to draw on existing government subsidy programs to advance the project. An airport project at Lambert fully financed by the private sector seems very good; the concern is whether this project is too good to be true. One would hope that state and local officials would be chastened after the Aerotropolis debacle if they’re considering handing out tax incentives, whatever their scale.

I certainly hope the Mexico Hub project can move ahead on its own merits and without taxpayer money. Cargo markets have “disappeared” before, and taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook if history repeats itself. We’ll keep you posted.

The post Lambert Officials Admit: Market for Cargo “Disappeared” Post-Aerotropolis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But those, of course, aren’t the only bills I’m following, and on Wednesday, another piece of legislation — a big tax cut — cleared its first hurdle in the House. That bill, HB 1253, is a stripped-down version of last year’s Broad-Based Tax Relief Act. The new bill gets back to the basics, cutting taxes for businesses of all sizes by half over a five-year period (assuming the revenue triggers are made annually, of course.) I expect that simplicity will serve the bill well, and so it was not surprising that the bill received significant backing from the chamber yesterday with a 104-48 vote.

We have talked repeatedly about how destructive income taxes, and particularly taxes on business income, are to growth. It is good to see the legislature responsibly moving forward to lift the tax burden on the family businesses in our communities, just as it was so willing to do for Boeing just a few months ago. Long way to go, but this is a start.

The post Significant Tax Cuts March Forward In Missouri House appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That brings us to today’s version of the Aerotropolis project, the $60 million “Missouri Export Incentive Act.” While this bill is considerably pared back from the original, the practical and policy problems that beset that first Aerotropolis attempt should not be forgotten.

Read the full testimony:

The post Aerotropolis By Any Other Name appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The sliver that has come back to life this time is “freight forwarding tax credits.” These tax credits are available to airlines or air freight companies that transport cargo on a direct international flight. Missouri House Bill 1500 (HB 1500) proposes a 40-cent/kg. cargo tax credit for any of those flights leaving a Missouri airport. The proposal calls for eventually allocating $60 million, with a yearly cap of $8 million. The purported purpose of the bill is to encourage foreign trade, presumably by making it cheaper for Missouri products to reach international markets.

However, as of this year, no direct international cargo flights leave Lambert. In addition, the only international passenger flights from Lambert go to resort destinations in Latin America. Whatever demand there is for Missouri exports in Latin America generally, it is unlikely that this demand is in seasonal resort towns such as Cancun and Montego Bay. As HB 1500 only allows tax credits for cargo on direct international flights, there may be few or no companies to take advantage of the proposed tax credit.

So who benefits? One possibility is that this bill is designed to subsidize Brownsville International Air Cargo Inc., which was in negotiations with Lambert for cargo space that could involve freight forwarding to Mexico. Another possibility is that the tax credit will act as another carrot to attract direct international flights to Lambert. Passenger airlines make 5-10 percent of their revenue from “belly cargo” on passenger flights. Making that cargo more profitable could make Lambert more competitive.

While these might seem like enticing goals to some, they are far from promoting Missouri’s foreign trade. The fact is, most cargo hubs in the United States are at either the major air passenger hubs (Los Angeles International Airport, JFK International in New York, etc.) or centers for major shipping companies (Memphis International Airport). Export tax credit or not, Lambert will not become a major air traffic hub when its landing fees are three to four times those of competing airports. Subsidizing a direct flight to Europe or Latin America may bring benefits to a few, but there is little reason the whole state should pay for this.

Like the original Aerotroplis plan, HB 1500 gives tax credits to select industries with only long-shot hopes for significant increases in Missouri exports. Saint Louis could be better off by making the airport, the city, and the state more competitive and economically vibrant, not pinning hopes on tax credit magic.

The post Aerotropolis Revisited appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The original timetable called for the Hazelwood plant to be producing vans by 2014, but that has been pushed back because the company is still searching for funding — about $160 million — to build the facility, Marble said.

In addition to some private capital, Emerald has received a $3 million loan from Hazelwood and $2 million from the Missouri Technology Corp., plus a $5 million grant from the British government’s Technology Strategy Board.

The company had hoped to snag a $100 million-plus loan from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, but withdrew that application last summer to pursue private investment options after federal energy loans stalled in the wake of the Solyndra controversy. Solyndra, a solar-panel manufacturer, went bankrupt after getting a $535 million DOE loan.

It’s never a good sign when your project, rightfully or wrongfully, gets lumped in with publicly financed boondoggles like Solyndra. The online publication Patch.com reported in July that Emerald says it will open its doors in 2015, with 600 jobs waiting in the wings. But as this process drags on, it begs the question: Is the Emerald project actually happening?  I left a message with the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) to find out; I haven’t received a return call.

Fortunately, Hazelwood’s office of economic development was more helpful. Hazelwood indicated that after abandoning the Department of Energy’s loan program, Emerald indeed turned its sights to finding investments from the private market and had been giving demonstrations of their product to potential investors. Although Hazelwood did not have a figure for how close Emerald had gotten to its original $160 million goal, it was pretty clear that Emerald wasn’t exactly getting close — at least not yet. Hazelwood and the MTC could take possession of some of Emerald’s patents if the company goes out of business, but as the Mamtek situation reaffirmed, there’s no telling whether the patents are worth anything close to the public loans that supported the company. That should leave us all a little unsettled.

On the positive side, I was happy to hear that the company is turning its attention to getting investments from the private market. That’s how it should have been from the beginning, and how it should be going forward. Every itemized dollar of investment noted in the St. Louis Beacon article was related in some way to government funding. That’s not how capitalism is supposed to work.

Will Emerald find the green? Time — and hopefully, the market — will tell. We’ll keep you posted.

The post Emerald Automotive Still Seeking The Green appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But even that couldn’t get through the legislature. Like a college sophomore starting an essay the night before it’s due, the legislature produced tax credit legislation at the latest possible moment with the smallest margin for error available. In school, you don’t get a passing grade for “I started late and my computer crashed!” or “My dog ate my homework!” You don’t get an “A” for “effort.” You get an “F” for “failure.”

Missouri’s heavy use of tax credits encourages government to pick winners and losers in our economy, leading to rampant abuse, distorted economic priorities, and tightening budgetary realities. It’s maddening that practically nothing has gotten done on tax credits that have sapped the state’s coffers in recent years — and whose consequences led to more than $400 million in economic development tax credit issuances in fiscal year 2012 alone. Let’s be blunt here: the legislative dysfunction on the tax credit issue is an unmitigated state disgrace. This year I was hopeful that the legislature had finally gotten past its dark tax credit days, whose depths were deeply plumbed with 2011’s Aerotropolis boondoggle.

But apparently not. As someone who takes notes on the floor debates in the state House and Senate, I cannot tell you how many times I heard a legislator say “I don’t agree with tax credits, but . . .,” and then go on to explain why their pet tax credit needed to be extended or created. (This is especially common in the House.) Bona fide tax credit reform supporters and opponents can disagree civilly, but I have little tolerance or patience for policymakers who are all hat and no cattle on this issue — happy to carve out special tax credits for their special groups as they blithely gore other credits. That’s the worst kind of hypocrisy. Sen. Jolie Justus, a tax credit supporter, was right on Friday to criticize such behavior from the floor of the Senate, and I’ve independently noted the same sort of behavior Justus observed.

The legislative intransigence on tax credits is stomach churning. Coupled with the governor’s leadership void on basically every issue, the legislature’s inaction on tax credit reform is a shameful low note of the session. Taxpayers deserve better than this shabby treatment.

The post Taxpayers Deserve Better Than This Shabby Treatment appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Stunt or not, this is a bad idea. According to the bill’s own sponsor, gun companies are moving because of strict gun regulations. There is no mention of the tax environment. No matter one’s opinion regarding gun control, giving tax dollars to companies that do not need them does not make sense. It is not like other tax credit programs have covered themselves in glory.

If the state really wants to make Missouri more appealing to all businesses, including gun manufacturers, it should eliminate business income taxes. That would be too simple, though, wouldn’t it?

The first step in overcoming a problem is admitting it exists. The state seems to give at least lip service to that via the Tax Credit Review Commission. But just when you think there might be hope to get our tax credit problem under control, you see stuff like this. Hopefully, this will not actually become law, but who knows at this point?

The post Gunning For Tax Breaks appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

MOSIRA had strong support of St. Louis-area biotech groups, and it was the lone accomplishment of the fall 2011 legislative session that was devoted to economic development. But lawmakers voted to approve MOSIRA that fall contingent on passage of a broader tax credit reform measure, which never happened. That led to a lawsuit by Missouri Roundtable for Life – which is concerned that MOSIRA could lead state funds to be used for stem cell or cloning research – and the program’s being overturned before ever launching.

In their opinion Tuesday, the justices wrote that the 2011 bill’s contingency clause violated the “single subject provision” of state law, and that the contingency clause could not be severed from the larger legislation, as it likely would not have passed without that clause in place.

Trivia: Do you know the bill upon which MOSIRA’s implementation was contingent? The answer: A package of tax credit legislation that included . . . the highly controversial Aerotropolis project. As went Aerotropolis, so went the 2011 session . . . and now, MOSIRA. Which is to say, nowhere.

Of course, there is an easy solution to avoid court fights such as this. Why not eliminate business taxation for all of Missouri’s companies? Stop picking winners and losers and set up a system of tax collection that incentivizes all businesses to stay in or come to Missouri. If the state wants to diversify its “investments” and support existing and emerging industries, why not tell all businesses, here and elsewhere, “We want you to invest in Missouri”? If the state did that, Missouri would, for once, force other states to respond to our pro-growth taxing proposals, rather than the other way around.

The post Want to Help Science Start-ups? Cut Their Taxes. While We’re At It, Cut Everyone’s. appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Let me briefly set the rhetorical stage on the Missouri Medicaid news of the last couple weeks that these two groups, in large part, have driven. First, hospital groups favored the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the Missouri Hospital Association even went so far as to oppose Proposition C, the Health Care Freedom Act, later that summer. Hospitals want, and have wanted, the Affordable Care Act for some time; it is not surprising that they would demand that the state expand Medicaid under that program.

Second, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce has supported pricey government programs in the past, and the Medicaid expansion is a doozy. Readers may remember that the Missouri Chamber was a key supporter of one of the biggest proposed boondoggles of the last decade, the Aerotropolis project, and that project was “only” a half billion dollars. The Medicaid expansion? The cost is upwards of $3 billion to the state, and billions more to the federal government (a government which we, of course, also fund.)

Lastly — and tying this all together — that MHA poll from last week was “reviewed” for an organization I cannot find by a lobbyist for a Medicaid managed-care provider, a lobbyist who worked side-by-side with the Chamber two years ago on . . . the Aerotropolis legislation.

We have seen this all before, and around we go yet again.

Stated simply: expansion is not reform. The tactics being used to re-package and re-message the issue are about as predictable as those used to promote Aerotropolis. Indeed, some of the same parties involved in Aerotropolis are involved in the Medicaid expansion. That fact should give us all some pause.

The post No, A Medicaid Expansion Would Not Be ‘Medicaid Reform’ appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Of course, as the executive director of the Missouri Workforce Housing Association, Smith certainly has an interest in pumping up the program. According to the MOWHA website (emphasis mine):

The mission of the Missouri Workforce Housing Association (MOWHA) is to have a sustained effort influencing positive workforce housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels. We work with the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC), the Affordable Housing Assistance Program (AHAP), Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) . . .

The concern about tax credits such as the LIHTC is not just their potential for growth, but their costs and benefits. The LIHTC regularly clears more than $100 million from the state’s budget each year. The taxpayer benefit? Eleven cents on the dollar — a massive net loss to the state with every LIHTC project it subsidizes. If that is a “solid investment,” what isn’t?

Missourians would be better served with state policies that benefit all businesses through low, stable tax rates. It would be best served by the elimination of taxes on businesses entirely, a reform other states are already pursuing. That is a solid investment worth pursuing.

The post Could The Tax Credit Bar For A ‘Solid Investment’ Be Any Lower? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Yet public money has already gone toward Aerotropolis. Last year, Saint Louis County officials diverted $3 million in gambling tax revenues to support Aerotropolis. At the time, Lambert’s director, Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, told the St. Louis County Economic Council that with the gambling money (emphasis mine),

We are ready to go. . . . These funds put the muscle into our argument that St. Louis is the right place to move cargo around the world. We have capacity and we are happily uncongested, unlike most other United States cargo hubs, such as Chicago and New York.

What happened to the money? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that not only did the original funds go unused, but that the airport is now gunning for a new $60 million cargo tax credit.

Last year, St. Louis County established a $3 million fund to subsidize cargo flights, but it has not been used. Airlines, say Hamm-Niebruegge, worry that they would burn through that pot too quickly; having a program worth $7.5 million a year for eight years will give the effort more staying power.

“It’s so critical for us to have a long-term view,” she said.

To summarize:

• In 2012, $3 million in casino taxes “put the muscle into [the airport’s] argument that St. Louis is the right place to move cargo around the world.”
• In 2013, not only was there such a lack of interest in the Saint Louis Aerotropolis project that no private actors drew on the money, but the airport says it needs more money. . . by a factor of 20.

If they have not already done so, policymakers have to ask themselves now: When will the Aerotropolis reality live up to the Aerotropolis rhetoric? Will it ever?

The fact is, Missouri’s economic development projects oftentimes live and die based on the promises supporters make, rather than the results they produce. Aerotropolis is simply a giant, tottering example of this unfortunate state of affairs. Now on its third time before the legislature and after literally years of puffery, it is time for Missouri to close the book on Aerotropolis and, more generally, other “big promise” tax credit projects. There are better ways to promote economic growth in Missouri. This is not it.

The post Part 2: It Is Time To Close The Book On Aerotropolis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So it is not surprising that Aerotropolis supporters are coming back to the state for more moolah in 2013. On Saturday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Lambert would now be gunning for a new $60 million cargo tax credit from the legislature this session.

Gone this time are $300 million in credits to fund real estate development around Lambert. Gone, too, is the lofty name; this version is dubbed the bureaucratic Missouri Export Incentive Act. What remains is an eight-year, $60 million tax credit strictly for air cargo flights from St. Louis.

“We want to keep it simple, and focused,” said Dan Mehan, chairman of the Midwest Hub Commission. “It’s very much slimmed down from what you’ve seen in the past.”

I’ll say it is slimmed down. Back in 2011, Aerotropolis supporters told the legislature that they needed nearly a half-billion dollars in state support for the project to work. When that failed, supporters came back and said $360 million in state funding would be enough to get the project off the ground. (Pun intended.) When that proposal failed in the face of fierce opposition, supporters revised their figures again and concluded that $60 million would do the trick. They received nothing.

The only reason the Midwest Hub Commission has resigned itself to delivering a “slimmed-down version” of Aerotropolis is because no one in Jefferson City has an appetite to fight another long battle for this handout. Audrey Spalding and I were deeply critical of the Aerotropolis plan two years ago because its economic arguments were highly flawed and its marketing was highly questionable. Case in point: some legislators who supported Aerotropolis were talking up Missouri beef exports to China as an Aerotropolis selling point — despite the fact that American beef is banned in China. Indeed, the organization Mehan leads, the “Midwest Hub Commission,” was formerly called the “Midwest China Hub Commission.”

New bill name, new organization name . . . same stuff.

Supporters can call Aerotropolis whatever they want, but it is still Aerotropolis. Now on its third time before the legislature, and after an utterly failed dry run for Saint Louis County to fund it, it is time for Missouri to close the book on Aerotropolis. Instead of centrally planning Missouri’s economy, the legislature should focus on broad-based tax reforms that reduce taxes for all businesses, not just the chosen few. Enough is enough.

The post Part 1: It Is Time To Close The Book On Aerotropolis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

He did not even bother to pay lip service to the weighty question of how he would fund it in his nearly 6,000-word address. He argued that the federal government — you and me — would pick up the entire tab until 2017, as if splitting the expansion across public credit cards mitigates the cost. That is some creative accounting that conceals an awful reality — that we would be expanding an entitlement today out of debt imposed on our children and grandchildren tomorrow. Simply inexcusable, and not addressed in his speech.

The governor cited the fact that the Missouri Chamber of Commerce supports his Medicaid expansion plans, but just because the Chamber of Commerce supports expanding Medicaid it does not make it the “right thing to do.” The Chamber’s imprimatur does not imply that the conscience of good government has been satisfied; in fact, it sometimes expresses the opposite. Lest we forget, the Chamber also endorsed Aerotropolis and later savaged legislators who have vehemently opposed corporate welfare in the state. The Chamber endorses bad policy all the time, and make no mistake, it has done so yet again with the Medicaid expansion.

Let’s be clear here:

• According to Missouri’s Office of Administration, services for newly eligible Medicaid enrollees would cost the state $54 million in fiscal year 2017, $124 million in fiscal year 2018, $155 million in fiscal year 2019, $212 million in fiscal year 2020, and $258 million in fiscal year 2021.
• In a report released last November, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that Missouri could expect to spend more than $1.15 billion between 2013 and 2022 just on these newly eligible enrollees.
• Moreover, those figures do not account for growth in the current Medicaid population and the attendant costs of that growth. As a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), states can expect to see increased enrollment in their current Medicaid programs as federal promotion of the expansion ratchets up and potential enrollees find out they qualify for state assistance. KFF found that between 2013 and 2022, Missouri could expect to pay an additional $1.6 billion for those enrollees.

If the state expands its Medicaid program, from now through 2022, Missouri would have nearly $3 billion in new Medicaid expenses — the cost of services for newly eligible enrollees plus the cost of services for currently eligible enrollees joining the program. Unfortunately, the governor chose not to address this reality.

You can read the governor’s speech here. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments.

The post State Of The State Address: Simply Irresponsible To Propose Medicaid Expansion appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Recently, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman proposed eliminating Nebraska’s individual and corporate income taxes. He also proposed eliminating $2.4 billion in sales tax exemptions (hat tip: Hot Air). This follows on the heels of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s proposal to eliminate Louisiana’s personal and corporate income taxes.

Not all proposals actually become law (case in point: Aerotropolis, thank heaven), but can Missouri really afford to sit back and hope these states, along with Wisconsin and Oklahoma, do not join Kansas in gaining a competitive advantage over us? Last year, my colleague Patrick Ishmael and I released an essay proposing that the state eliminate its corporate income tax. Considering the plethora of states looking at not only axing the corporate income tax, but the personal income tax as well, eliminating the corporate income tax might not be just desirable. It might be necessary.

Missouri is in a border war. It might not have chosen this fight, but it is in it nonetheless. It can respond by doing what it has been doing, issuing development tax credits and hoping for the best, or it can engage in serious reform to help make the state more competitive with its neighbors. The gauntlet(s) has been thrown down, how will Missouri respond?

The post Not Nebraska, Too appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The state now has given more than $40 million in credits to the NorthSide project to redevelop a 2-square-mile area in north Saint Louis. And for all this money, there has not been much progress to show for it. So far, the state has not seen any real benefits from awarding several million dollars for this project.

If I was reimbursed for (almost) everything I bought, I would not be in much of a hurry either. McKee says he will make progress after he receives the $390 million Tax Increment Financing (TIF) package he is waiting on. As our regular readers know, we have been covering this issue for a long time. NorthSide applied for the TIF more than three years ago but it has been held up in court.

There is a chance that the Missouri Supreme Court will rule against the TIF in the next few months.

“If that doesn’t go our way,” McKee said about the potential ruling, “we’re dead.”

That would not be such a bad thing. Taxpayers would be off the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars, which are likely to be of more benefit to McKee than to North Saint Louis.

The post One Lucky Duck appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

First, being pro-business is not the same as being pro-free market. Being pro-business can devolve into being pro-some businesses and anti-other businesses. For example, my colleague Kacie Galbraith wrote about the Columbia Regional Airport and the various incentive schemes city officials are cooking up to entice American Airlines to offer service there, at the expense of Delta. The proper response would have been lowering costs and burdens for ALL airlines and letting the free market determine which, if any airlines, might serve the Columbia region.

The Speaker has assured the taxpayers that there will not be anything like “Aerotropolis” coming down the pipe. That is great to hear. Yet, when Speaker Jones talks about “implementing incentives,” I get nervous. The biggest incentive for businesses to locate in Missouri would be a favorable environment for ALL businesses. The incentives that legislators talk about usually mean a new tax subsidy, taking money from one group of people and giving it to another.

I hope the House moves in the tax cut direction and away from the business incentive direction. I have blogged (a lot) about the benefits of eliminating the corporate income tax and the taxes on pass-through entities. As I mentioned before, the Senate seems disposed to pass some sort of income tax cut. If the House follows suit, it is possible to enact some meaningful reform.

The post And Over In The House appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri is lagging behind economically compared to other states. The state should avoid development schemes such as Aerotropolis and instead focus on other means of boosting the state’s economic competitiveness, such as tax reform.

Oklahoma is looking to enact major tax reform with an eye toward eliminating the state’s income tax. That is a worthy long-term goal and it is an issue that the Show-Me Institute has studied in the past. In the nearer term, the state should focus on eliminating the income tax on c-corps and pass-through entities. Pass-through entities are businesses whose income is taxed at the individual level instead of the company level. Many small businesses and professional corporations, such as a dental practice, are pass-through entities. Kansas got the drop on us when it eliminated its tax on pass-through entities. Missouri can do one better if both the corporate income tax and the tax on pass-through entities are eliminated.

There have been a couple of attempts to reform the corporate income tax. Missouri Sen. Will Kraus (R-Dist. 8) proposed a bill that would have modified certain tax credits and used the increased revenue to offset the corporate income tax. The Missouri House passed a corporate tax cut in 2011. Unfortunately, these attempts did not go any further. However, the legislature can still move forward, especially now that there is a veto-proof majority. Policy changes that Missouri’s neighbors have enacted have made change more necessary.

The post A Golden Opportunity appeared first on Show-Me Institute.