North Carolina has been on a slippery incentive slope for quite some time. Over $1.5 billion owed by the state and local governments spent over $400 million last year alone. Once rare, they are now as common as candy at Halloween. But the slope is becoming ever steeper with Easley’s recent veto of a $40 million Goodyear deal that turned into a $60 million spectacular that even the GOP was leery of supporting.
But now, we’ve entered a new day, a day that we can openly proclaim that we’ll seek new taxes to fund our incentives. From the Hickory Daily Record
CONCORD, N.C. – County leaders are trying to put together an incentives package worth $75 million to discourage Bruton Smith from moving Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
The state, Cabarrus County and city of Concord would each chip in a third of the money to cover the incentives, which range from road improvements around the speedway to property tax rebates. The incentives were developed from Smith’s “wish list.”
Options to pay for the incentives include increasing the property tax rate by 1 cent, increasing the hotel-motel occupancy tax by 1 percent or seeking state legislation for a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects, Day said.
My oh my. . .
Incidentally, it’s illegal to use the word “rebate” when discussing incentives even though that’s what it is. Shortly, Concord will change the language to reflect “grants” as that is the appropriate slippery language.
At least a bit more honesty is creeping into the discussion as incentives do create higher property taxes for the rest of us.
