A resolution before the Utah Legislature would compel state tax authorities to perform a comprehensive review of the use of tax incentives for new businesses to see whether they are a justifiable public investment in private enterprise. For example, was it necessary to offer Amazon $5.6 million in tax breaks in 2017 to build a distribution facility in Salt Lake City? Would the e-commerce giant not have built the center anyway as part of its business plan?
Separately, the nonprofit Utah Foundation has launched a wide-ranging probe into the use of economic development incentives and has preliminarily found that existing government data on the outcome of applied incentives is limited, making it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness.
