Report: Tax Incentives Waste Money, Don’t Create Jobs

A study funded by Heinz Endowments and undertaken by non-profit Good Jobs First has questioned the value of Pennsylvania’s use of large tax breaks to lure high-tech business to the state and keep existing players from relocating.

The 94-page study, called “Growing Pennsylvania’s High Tech Economy: Choosing Effective Investments,” released today, compared Pennsylvania’s incentives and job-creation results with numbers from Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, North Carolina and West Virginia.

The report concluded that a reliance on tax incentives is costly, risky and potentially ineffective in creating long-term job growth.

The survey drew upon 20 years of Pennsylvania employment data, and found that since 1990 nearly all of the growth in the state’s high-tech economy has come from companies founded in the state. Special tax rates or incentives designed to lure new companies across state lines have proved to be ineffective, the report said, finding that Pennsylvania’s tax rates are about average for the group of state’s surveyed.

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