5000 new jobs attached to pending Amazon deal
Hinging on a state tax exemption that would last four and a half years, a new deal is slowly taking shape between online retailer Amazon.com and Texas officials.
If the online sales tax exemption is approved, Amazon has promised to invest $300 million in the state and create over 5,000 jobs.
The Austin-American Statesman reports the proposal would be attached to Senate Bill 1, the fiscal matters bill being debated in the Legislatures special session. SB 1 is a must-pass measure essential to balancing the states 2012-13 budget.
The proposal is being called a last-ditch effort on the part of officials to keep Amazon in Texas.
While Amazon isnt specifically named in the proposal, the verbiage addresses any online retailer that can create 5,000 jobs and invest $300 million in the Texas economy.
Other information that wasnt included was the number of distribution centers Amazon plans to build in Texas, when, or where the facilities might be created.
The proposal also specifies that if the goals arent met, the sales tax collection exemption would no longer apply.
Bernard Weinstein, an economist at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, told the Statesman that if Amazon does create 5,000 jobs and invest $300 million in Texas in the next three years, the additional state and local revenues generated by this economic activity should far exceed the foregone sales taxes.
Weinstein went on to say the deal could put storefront retailers at a disadvantage as Amazon burgeons to become the largest retailer in Texas and the U.S.
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