Tag: Taxes

Apr 17

2025

IDAs responsible for millions in tax breaks, fees

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Meetings of the Erie and Niagara county IDAs (top) and the Genesee County IDA industrial park (bottom). Across Western New York last year, some 639 companies were allowed to skip out on $91 million in tax payments. In exchange, those companies kept nearly 18,000 people employed.  The story doesn’t end there. The companies also paid fees to the industrial development agencies that issued those tax breaks — nearly $22 million in 2024. For nine of the 13 IDAs in the region, those fees covered 75 percent or more of their annual budgets. Those figures are spelled out in the annual[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Jun 7

2024

Buffalo-areas schools spending about $28,000 per student

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Thirty-nine school budgets totaling $4 billion were recently approved in Erie and Niagara counties for the upcoming school year. The money will educate some 138,000 public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The individual budgets range from a low of $17.7 million in North Collins, the smallest school district, with just 564 students, to a high of almost $1 billion in the largest district, Buffalo public schools, with some 30,000 students. (Charter schools in the Buffalo area, with some 12,000 students, are not included in this analysis.) We looked at per pupil spending - total budget divided by enrollment.[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 24

2024

Buffalo back on top in race with Amherst

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Back in 2000, the value of taxable property in Amherst eclipsed that of Buffalo. It was believed to be the first time that had happened and raised questions about the city’s fiscal health. By 2015, Amherst growth was slowing as Buffalo’s picked up. In 2021, fueled in part by rising housing prices, as well as downtown and waterfront investment, Buffalo’s tax base edged ahead. The most recent figures peg the 2023 value of Buffalo’s taxable property at $15.3 billion, compared to Amherst’s $14.5 billion. We should note, however, that Amherst inches closer each year.

Posted 2 years ago

Apr 15

2024

Taxes are for us, not them

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Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, took in more than $27 billion in revenue last year. It didn’t pay a dime in federal taxes.  It’s not alone. As reported by Jacobin: “More than one hundred of the country’s most profitable corporations paid zero federal income taxes in at least one year since the Trump tax cuts were enacted.” The story was based on a report generated by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. You’ve got to read the tables that names names. Many a president and Congress have passed tax laws that have enabled corporations to pay a much lower effective[...]

Posted 2 years ago

Mar 13

2024

Buffalo’s tax auction limbo

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Last September Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto held up the city’s sale of a house on Amherst Street because he knew the city had acquired the property through a tax foreclosure. He wanted to be sure the children of the former owner, who died, got any surplus funds generated by the sale. Feroleto had reason for concern. In 2019, the Brown administration changed its process for handling the money generated at tax foreclosure auctions so that the city could keep more of the proceeds. As a result, millions of dollars that in the past might have been returned to[...]

Posted 2 years ago

May 31

2023

IDA tax breaks cost schools millions

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 Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories on industrial development agencies. Tomorrow, we report on “perverse incentives” and other shortcomings in IDA programs. Any time Susan McGee’s children want to join an activity outside of the classroom — be it sports, music or other extracurriculars — it means one thing: a fundraiser. Raising money for extracurriculars may seem routine for a small, struggling Rust Belt city like Dunkirk, where McGee’s children attend school. But there’s another factor at play: The Dunkirk City School District loses out on an average of $5 million in revenue every year thanks[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Feb 8

2023

Report: Tax breaks costing schools big money

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Public schools across the state are losing out on close to $2 billion a year — and probably a whole lot more — because of tax breaks given to corporations by economic development agencies. That’s among the conclusions of a study released today by Good Jobs First, a national research group that tracks economic development subsidies. The report said tax breaks affecting schools in New York far outpace those in other states. That lost revenue has prompted state lawmakers, including Sen. Sean Ryan, to propose legislation that would prohibit economic development agencies from abating property and sales taxes that are[...]

Posted 3 years ago

Sep 18

2014

SolarCity shakedown?

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo last fall pledged $225 million to build and equip a clean energy hub along Buffalo’s waterfront. It was good enough for Silevo, a solar panel manufacturer, and Soraa, the makers of high-efficiency light bulbs. It apparently isn’t good enough for SolarCity, however, which bought Silevo in June. Cuomo has subsequently suggested it’s going to take a richer incentive package to bring SolarCity into the fold and press reports indicate at least two other states are in the hunt for the solar panel plant that is penciled in for Buffalo. Given the track record of SolarCity Chairman Elon[...]

Posted 11 years ago
Investigative Post