Saturday Open Thread [6.23.12]

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1. MJ says:

   June 23, 2012 at 12:19 pm

   sitting by the pool in the backyard. Life is good.

2. puck says:

   June 23, 2012 at 1:06 pm

   Chinese festival in Hockessin this weekend: http://chinesefestival.org/

3. Geezer says:

   June 23, 2012 at 1:17 pm

   For those interested in the Flowers/Markell controversy, here’s an analysis story about a more widely publicized power play, the one at UVa. where the “business people” on the school’s board staged a coup against the popular university president. It focuses on the risk/reward dynamic:

   http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/06/helen_dragas_and_the_uva_board_took_a_bad_gamble_in_trying_to_fire_teresa_sullivan_in_secret_.html

4. puck says:

   June 23, 2012 at 3:26 pm

   Katz introduces another business tax break:

   businesses that bring a minimum of 200 “essential” jobs paying an average salary of 70 thousand dollars here would get a 10-year, 25-percent break in their withholding tax, which would increase to 40 percent if the company brings 500 jobs or more.

   I’m not automatically opposed to this, since it only kicks in in return for real results. I haven’t looked into it beyond the report from WDEL. What is corporate “withholding tax?”

5. kavips says:

   June 24, 2012 at 2:58 am

   Math wise, an incoming company would be contributing $14,000,000 a year to the local economy, and the state tax on incomes over $60,000 is 6.75%,

   The withholding is taken from the employees, comes out of their pocket, which is $945,000 a year….

   So even though it comes out of the employees check, the employer will get the opportunity to take $236,250 off whatever taxes he is supposed to owe….each years..

   So in round figures, his employee cost will be $14,000,000 plus the employer’s share of FICA 6.2% ($868,000) minus the $236,250 a year in tax savings equaling….. $14,631,750….

   That may seem like a lot of money to you, for for some company big enough to hire 200 people, their initial investment would probably be over $100 million. (1 million to build, and $99 million for bribes, lol) Just kidding. This little bit wouldn’t sway them one way or another.

   I would like to see a clause where if passed, this gets reevaluated yearly based on the Labor Departments figures. Drop under the minimum level, you lose the entire benefit.

   That way a company thinking of laying off workers must consider whether dropping from 200 to 199 employees is worth the $236,250 a year it will cost them…..

   At least for that angle, I’m in favor of it. But many companies, Wal*Mart especially, have gotten sweat-heart deals like this engraved in stone, and kept the ability to write off the original amount, long after they’d laid off 75% of their initial hires…

   So, please close that loophole.

   But put succinctly, for no lost revenue (you don’t lose what you never get) $14,000,000 gets pumped into the economy… Imagine all that hitting Clayton.. and the state collects $945,000 more revenue than they previously had, from the incomes of those working.

   So it wouldn’t sway me to move into Delaware to do business; not like having super cheap power from a gigantic wind farm off Rehoboth would.

   It sounds good though.