The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Categories
UMass Economics

Michael Ash comments in a story about the economic diversity of Killeen, Texas

From an article in the Killeen Herald by Clay Thorp, staff writer (3/10/15):

Many Texas cities use tax abatements to attract large companies. But economists such as Michael Ash, professor of economics and public policy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said many large cities should avoid large tax breaks to attract the biggest companies.
“Local leadership should avoid the subsidy trap, offering enormous tax breaks to try to attract a big employer,” Ash said.
“It’s almost irresistible because other cities are also bidding for the same companies, but it is often a race to the bottom. It would be good to have state or even federal leadership in preventing these bidding wars.”

Read article…..

 

 

 

 

Categories
UMass Economics

Léonce Ndikumana joins expert global commission responding to one-sided tax debate

Press Release: Expert Global Commission Responds to One-Sided Tax Debate
(New York) Responding to widespread anger about corporate tax avoidance, the impacts of such avoidance on inequality and poverty, and concerns that current tax reform processes are inadequate, a new nonpartisan body—the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT)—has been established to propose reforms from the perspective of the public interest. The inaugural meeting of the Commission will take place in New York on March 18-19, 2015.
The Commission’s Chair, former UN Under-Secretary-General José Antonio Ocampo, says: “The world has changed but the international tax system has not. Corporations play governments against each other, for example, in encouraging race-to-the-bottom tax incentives, and the public loses out. There are billions of dollars at stake. This Commission will shed light on where the rules of the game, and the institutions that govern them, need to change.” Read more…..