Lee on REAP open-ended tax breaks and Amazon HQ2 concerns
Lee raises concerns about REAP being an as-of-right program that could cost billions for large companies like Amazon. Peck notes EDC provides analysis but doesn't make policy decisions on as-of-right incentives.
Okay, and then do the businesses tend to be smaller, larger in size, that benefit from REAP and RACE?
I think it's smaller to medium.
Smaller to medium.
Okay.
I think it's on a case-by-case basis.
Okay.
And the main city-funded subsidy, for example, for Amazon HQ2 was the REAP program, and it would have cost the city up to $1.4 billion in tax subsidy.
Yeah, that's the exception.
Yeah.
Since REAP is an as-of-right program, the city would not have had the authority to limit or condition the use of...
of this tax break by Amazon or any other large company.
So does EDC think an open-ended tax break like that is wise use?
Are you looking into that or any of the other programs?
Again, I think we provide the statistics and look at it.
And when we offer that up, it's not in our sort of decision-making power to decide on that, but we do analyze it and provide.
As you know, we have IDA, which is a discretionary tax incentive program, and so we really look at those very specifically and analyze those to see that it's making sense for the communities in the city.
No, that's great.
I love data.
So anything you guys have to inform that would be wonderful.
We'd be happy to share.
And I'll get back to you on the size of the companies because I might have.
I'm not really sure.
I think it varies.
Okay, perfect.
Chair Maloney, I'm passing it over to you.
Excellent.