The article claims that:
"Bessemer residents have to pay for Amazon to come exploit workers in their city. The Bessemer Occupational Tax requires that everyone who works in Bessemer, including the workers at Amazon, pay one percent of their income to Amazon. "
However there is no link to any references and I couldn’t find anything based on a quick search. This sounds utterly bizarre and dystopian, so would really appreciate any further references that back up the claim or dismiss it.
Thanks
I don’t think that is possible some company cant just ask for taxes from people, I mean maybe if what they did was counted as a “community service” because they made jobs in the area then a % of the taxes that people already payed might go to them?
That’s what I would have thought as well. Just with the whole episode where Amazon was pitching cities against each other to bid for their headquarter, I wasn’t sure…
well cities will subsidise a company with taxpayer money, so that they locate their facilities in that city and usually hire a quoted number of people. It’s very common and basically every large corporation will receive some taxpayer money in this way.