Amazon finally has been confirmed as the tenant for a massive warehouse now being completed in New Stanton. And public officials are falling all over themselves, touting the coming complex for the e-commerce giant as the greatest thing to come down the turnpike since soft butter, sliced bread and microwaveable food all rolled into one.
Indeed, the behemoth distribution facility will be the largest property tax remitter in the borough. Eventually, that is.
For you see, the property is part of the Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) program. That means Amazon will pay no higher taxes on the increased value of the property for five years.
That means tax receipts will be a paucity of a percentage of what they eventually, supposedly, will be. As the Post-Gazette reports it, three taxing bodies – the local borough, the school district and Westmoreland County – “extended the tax abatement program at the request of the former property owner before the land was sold for the redevelopment.”
But for the tax abatement, Amazon might not have built the new facility, goes the boilerplate argument.
But because of the tax abatement, a company with a net income for the 12 months ended on June 30 of more than $13.1 billion – up 12.6 percent-plus over 2022 – is offloading what should be its tax burden on other borough, school district and county taxpayers for half a decade.
Would Amazon not have built this new distribution center without the tax abatement? That’s unlikely, given, as the P-G notes, the parcel on which it sits is “a prime location” for such a facility with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 70 and U.S. 119 “all converging in the area.”
“But, but, but,” the fine purveyor’s of corporate wealthfare surely will “Tut, tut, tut,” the nearly 560 jobs that the facility is expected to provide would have been in jeopardy if not for the abatement.
And, betcha by golly wow, those abatements will more than pay for themselves — many times over — in the coming years, they’ll add. But, sans the abatement, the warehouse would have paid much, much more.
Amazon should pay its own way, in toto. Taxpayers should not pay for Amazon. Period.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
