North Carolina lawmakers are pushing to give Apple Inc. a multi-million dollar tax break should the company bring an East Coast computer server farm to the state – an estimated $1 billion investment, according to a state official with knowledge of the recruitment efforts…
While it has been known that North Carolina lawmakers were working on changing tax rules to benefit one company, the name of the outfit has been kept secret.
The House Finance Committee on Thursday altered the proposed tax change so companies could qualify only if they locate in one of North Carolina’s poorest counties, provide health insurance, meet a wage standard, and forego other state grants or tax breaks…The tax breaks could be worth about $46 million in the next decade, assuming the company reaches its $1 billion investment target within nine years of starting, according to a memo by legislative fiscal staffers that does not identify the company. The memo said no current company meets the criteria to receive the tax break and the Commerce Department knows of just one with the potential to qualify.
“It’s very specific to this project,” Luebke said of the tax breaks.
The conditions adopted Thursday, if approved by both legislative chambers and the governor, would push the project from the state’s urbanized corridor connecting Raleigh to Greensboro and Charlotte. In 2007, Google Inc. committed to spending $600 million for a server farm near Lenoir in the western North Carolina foothills. It opened last year…
My, oh my. Apple’s existing server facilities do a truly crappy and underpowered job at handling the traffic they already have. But, this sounds like a Google-level facility.
Whatever do they have in mind?
UPDATE: NC state legislature debated less than a minute – and approved the package.
Gee I wonder. This is truly a puzzler all right.
Maybe this is their way of getting into home console gaming by copying the premise of OnLive.
Who knows, though it’ll probably turn out to be something anti-climactic.
Maybe try to fix Mobile Me?
Obviously Apple needs to do some serious number crunching to determine a quantum theory of shiny and pretty, to ensure that all future products succeed in the marketplace. This will stop failures such as Apple TV from ever happening. With the theory in place and properly implemented, the Apple TV would have been shiny and pretty enough to dominate.
Wow, tough crowd. An American technology company that is doing well and is expanding overseas. Now they are building more US based infrastructure.
We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?
Considering that Apple’s trademark is to sell underpowered crap at a premium this sounds quite intriguing.
Maybe Apple iS planniNg on creatiNg theiR own iNternet and then restriCtiNg iT so only iMacs, iPods, iPhones and iSmug iPeople are allowed to use iT?
🙂
Well their last update to OSX would have taken up half a CD if you put it on one. Maybe they will be fixing the last fix.
Maybe with iTunes music and video rentals and occasional huge OS updates they could use an East coast data center. Split the load and bandwidth. The East coast center could also be used to cover Europe.
Funny how people forget that iTunes is a huge seller of music and videos but doesn’t sell you plastic discs.
Just as important: Whose gear will they use?
wow these politicos in north carolina are tax gernrating geniuses! lets lure new companies to are state and not have them pay the full amount in taxes!! and lets get companies that have a boat load of h1b employees so we can get the full amount of income tax dollars!!! we’re in race to the bottom!! and we all want to be winners!! dont we???
It’s for cloud computing. The next generation of IT meth… get hooked and they gotcha.
Well, the farm is most likely to serve mobile me and to serve as a content delivery node. Seeing as they serve movies and music through ITunes direct downloads, they are going to need to have multiple sites to facilitate those purposes.
The up coming Mac tablet will integrate tightly with Mobile Me. Also it will download apps like the iphone. Locating farms on booth coasts adds redundant protection. This is all pulled out of the blue, but it sounds good.
#10 – AdmFubar – …get companies that have a boat load of h1b employees…
Corporations have one goal and that’s to make money. And in order to make money, they need highly educated employees to make products that people want to buy. If the average Americans spent time on educating themselves instead of taking “recreational drugs”, then the US wouldn’t need the high number of educated H1Bs.
#00ff00 Appleoogle? #000000 whatever….
(#00FF00) Appleoogle?
Apple’s H1B stats over the last 8 years. 291 last year out of roughly ~18,000 employees.
http://myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Apple/40571.htm
Microsoft’s was 4437 last year for ~90,000 employees:
http://myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Microsoft/356252.htm
Around 13.7 million people are out of work in the US
Sorry about www’s Ed, I forgot
[Fixed it.
– ed.]
#17 – qb – Around 13.7 million people are out of work in the US
Thank Bush for that.
Most of the people here are too stupid, biased against Apple, just plain obnoxious to even have the nerve to speculate. Take your medication, kids- and remember- life sucks if you want it to.
Why would the this gov’t want to give tax breaks to Apple? Makes no sense.
#22 – Patrick – Why would the this gov’t want to give tax breaks to Apple?
It’s called labor politics.
I can see Mac clouds on the horizon…
Hey, I’m always happy to see new and better servers come online. There are too many slow almost useless servers around now. I have a 25mbps line and seldom come close to it’s capabilities.
#25: Actually, slow servers are not the only thing to slow data transfer. The local cable or DSL providers are the most likely bottlenecks.
Thin clients.
My understanding is that it’s pretty well-established these state tax-breaks don’t do anything for the state. Except maybe give them bragging rights that they’ve got FORTUNE 500 COMPANY located there.
They waste all this time trying to lure one company, when they should be lowering taxes across the board to attract a whole slew of companies (without having to waste the time cutting these deals.)
“…companies could qualify only if they locate in one of North Carolina’s poorest counties, provide health insurance, meet a wage standard,…”
So, Walmart needn’t apply. 🙂
Why are some commenters here so negative about elected officials trying to attract companies to a state’s poorest counties – as long as they provide health insurance and “decent” wages?
It would seem they do plan to expand their on line position. In what way is another question. Getting their server farm away from the west coast and the economic mess/high taxes there might be part of it.
There isn’t a huge number of jobs in data centers, but the construction and upkeep (power, roads, etc) provide a long term infrastructure and revenue stream to the surrounding communities. Google’s big NC data center (~$600 million) is in Lenoir (I think) which is in the less developed west counties, provides about 250 direct jobs, and probably another 400 indirect jobs. The big win is that the state and local counties get >$30 million in tax revenue per year over 10-15 years.
The above figures are probably close but conservative (memory don’t fail me now). It builds infrastructure and provides a tax base. It’s an easy win for everyone. I’ve worked in a few of places like Lenoir where a large company has a local facility. The biggest win I’ve noticed (besides all the goodies above) is the pride the community feels over having Apple, or Google, or Metlife, or BMW, or whatever in their town. That, to me, is the icing on the cake.