Six years ago, a New York Times investigation found cities and counties nationwide gave a combined $80 billion a year in incentives to companies. Earlier this year, experts at the Brookings Institution estimated that figure now is about $90 billion, and growing.
Earlier this year, the Utah Foundation released a study on sales taxes that found Utah has granted 91 separate exemptions from that tax, costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Each exemption sounds great at the time it is proposed, with the promise of future jobs and corporate investments. Taken together, however, they are a drain on public coffers that taxpayers must make up.
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