Letters: Boeing’s tax game

Re “Big tax breaks for the taking,” Column, Jan. 5

As Boeing’s threat to relocate final assembly of its new 777X from Washington state to whichever state or whichever workers can offer it the best deal shows, the race to the bottom continues.

Corporations play one government against another to gain tax breaks and other benefits. The “winning” entity often receives dubious value in return for the gifts.

The primary effect nationwide is to reduce the corporations’ tax contributions, transferring the burden to individuals. Even if the corporation does not receive the desired gifts from bidders, the threat can be used to coerce concessions from workers, who receive an ever-shrinking share of the economic pie.

I wonder if states would be willing to make me an offer to move? After all, I would be spending money there, which leads to more jobs, and therefore I would deserve a break on my taxes.

Darrel Miller

Santa Monica

Michael Hiltzik describes businesses seeking to lower their tax bills by pitting one state against another as “extortion by corporations.”

Really? Those businesses aren’t doing anything different than the average American does when he goes shopping and pits Apple against Samsung, General Motors against Ford or Ralphs against Vons.

What Hiltzik calls extortion, I call savvy shopping and good competition — the benefits of which are less-expensive and better products and services for consumers and more jobs for the state.

My advice to California: Develop a competitive and sustainable strategy, and put up a big “open for business” sign.

Ted Cosse

Pasadena

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