Tennessee Local Governments Give Amazon $166 Million in Tax Breaks

by Volunteer State News

 

Amazon received $166 million in subsidies, tax breaks, and grants from Tennessee communities for 20 projects.

Advocacy group Good Jobs First, which opposes such subsidies, found Tennessee provided the eighth-highest amount of grants and breaks among U.S. states to the nearly $1-trillion company.

Tennessee is ranked behind Ohio (14 projects/$172 million) and ahead of Kentucky (21 projects/$112 million), Missouri (2 projects/$111 million), and Massachusetts (5 projects/$87 million).

The most expensive subsidy provided in Tennessee was by the Nashville government, which offered $87 million to Amazon in grants and tax credits.

The second largest subsidy was provided by the Memphis local government, worth $18 million of tax giveaways and grants through what’s known as the PILOT program, as well as $3 million for a FastTrack grant.

There were two developments which received undisclosed subsidy amounts.

Several Amazon projects were cancelled on put on hold in recent years. Construction of office spaces being built in Nashville were put on hold in 2021, as reported by WKRN, and have not yet resumed by January 2023.

A fulfillment center in Alcoa, which received $1.6 million in subsidies and promised over 800 jobs, was delayed in early 2022, according to WBIR. The completion date was pushed to mid-2023.

Plans to open a fulfillment center in Clarksville were also delayed by up to 10 months, with a currently unknown opening date, as reported by ClarksvilleNOW.

Tennessee has provided several major subsidies to car manufacturers, including nearly $900 for Ford Motors and more than $800 million for Volkswagen.

Tennessee does not collect income tax.

As of Nov. 17, 2022, Amazon had received 310 separate tax break deals from local and state governments across the U.S., totaling $5.14 billion. The state of Virginia was home to the largest portion of these taxpayer-subsidized Amazon projects.

Amazon Tax Breaks Across the U.S.
STATE # PROJECTS TOTAL SUBSIDY
Virginia 20 $824,291,799
Illinois 16 $732,973,199
New York 22 $671,446,986
Washington 10 $608,644,670
Oregon 32 $483,459,645
Texas 13 $305,959,751
Ohio 14 $172,418,555
Tennessee 20 $166,030,438
Kentucky 21 $111,789,976
Missouri 2 $110,600,000
Massachusetts 5 $86,979,275
California 12 $84,541,000
Michigan 5 $82,352,146
Maryland 3 $68,425,000
South Carolina 5 $64,297,962
Indiana 15 $60,389,500
Alabama 2 $56,500,000
Wisconsin 6 $54,135,500
Louisiana 7 $48,967,587
New Jersey 3 $45,422,240
Florida 13 $43,239,475
Connecticut 3 $37,700,000
North Carolina 5 $31,186,975
Pennsylvania 4 $29,557,871
Georgia 5 $27,115,929
Mississippi 3 $23,925,795
Iowa 2 $22,400,000
Kansas 2 $21,802,522
Colorado 9 $15,779,091
Oklahoma 5 $11,207,651
Utah 3 $9,780,226
Delaware 2 $7,972,500
Minnesota 1 $5,700,000
New Mexico 1 $5,244,071
Arizona 2 $5,139,671
Nevada 5 $3,251,324
Rhode Island 1 $2,700,000
Maine 11 $578,828

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Photo “Amazon Fulfilment Center” by Lvi56. CC BY-SA 3.0.

 

 

 

 


Reprinted with permission from Volunteer State News

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One Thought to “Tennessee Local Governments Give Amazon $166 Million in Tax Breaks”

  1. Randy

    Ah yes, ED. The one thing where in the end someone does not get what they expected. The measure of success of the financial input from government in this process is largely ignored if the individual project fails.

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