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DEL.ICIO.USBy faith alone do we cut corporations their slack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It is gospel in the Church of the Fiscally Faithful that corporate tax credits are a good thing. They encourage business, they create jobs, they encourage growth. Don’t they?
Turns out, we don’t know for sure. We’ve been operating on faith alone. That’s “we” as in both Democrats and Republicans.
State Auditor Russell Hinton this month issued a report entitled “Internal Controls Over Corporate Income Tax Credits” within the state Department of Revenue.
Hinton’s staff took a look at 13 different kinds of tax credits the state has awarded businesses — for research, workforce education, to encourage the relocation of headquarters to Georgia, even for sending cigarettes abroad.
Here’s the key paragraph in the audit, which is available online:
“Georgia has forgone at least $284.5 million in potential income tax revenue due to tax credit use from 1999 through 2004 with little indication of any economic development benefits resulting from these tax expenditures.”
State law doesn’t require that the impact of these credits be collected and analyzed, “despite their having the same fiscal impact as direct program expenditures,” the report notes.
It’s something to keep in mind when we go after the next auto plant.
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