Chip Taylor

More on the role of tax incentives

In an article about the high cost of doing business in Seattle, a business location consultant discusses the role of incentives:

Operating costs are mostly shaped by market forces, Boyd said.

"There's very little the government can do -- most of these cost structures are market-driven," Boyd said. "The only thing the government can do is resist pressure to raise taxes," he said.

Tax breaks and other incentives play only a small role in a location decision, and only when a company is deciding among top candidates, he said.

"If (incentives) were that important, you wouldn't be losing industry to smaller communities that can't afford to offer incentives," he said.

But "corporations won't tell you that, because they want everything, and politicians won't talk about it because they run on being friendly to business," Boyd said.

That's in general agreement with what I posted here.