Texas County Gives Apple A Massive Tax Break, and Wants To Give Other Companies the Same

Travis County Texas, home of State capitol Austin, is considering a new policy that gives businesses a tax rebate of up to 80% if they meet certain requirements pertaining to hiring and facility placement and investment according to the Austin American Statesman. Under the proposal a business would have to make an investment of at least $25 million dollars in expansion money and hire at least 50 workers and hires or trains in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Apple, the most valuable company in the country, just got $6.4 million dollars from the County after agreeing to build a $226 million dollar office facility and pay an average salary of $35,000 annually to the bottom 10% of its workers.

Travis County has also been in the paper lately because it is raising property taxes to cover budget shortfalls this year in addition to laying off 49,000 teachers. The County is also cutting financial aid for 43,000 college students.

the State of Texas and the City of Austin have already given apple more than $29 million dollars in tax breaks for the facility. Travis county is ponying up the smallest rebate for the company regarding the project.

Over the next 10 years the benefit to the City of Austin is estimated to be higher than $23 million dollars and even though it is less than the breaks they are getting the intangible benefits are said to outweigh the negatives.

Apple plans to hire 3,600 workers and pay them an average $63,950 per year, according to the city of Austin.

Apple is worth almost $600 billion dollars making it the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.