Why did New York offer Amazon 3 times the tax breaks Virginia did?

John Schoettler, Vice President for Global Real Estate at Amazon, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Amazon wants to evenly divide its second headquarters between New York City and the Washington D.C. area. But the two cities aren't exactly splitting the very large bill.

In the company's Tuesday announcement revealing that its HQ2 will land in New York's Long Island City and northern Virginia's Crystal City, Amazon disclosed that New York would deliver $1.525 billion in "performance-based tax incentives" for its job-creating investment. Virginia, meanwhile, would deliver just $573 million — a third of New York's deal, Axios' Felix Salmon pointed out.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.