Tax cut meant to help poor redirected by Hogan to help billionaire Kevin Plank

[Anonymous]

One Trump Tax Cut Was Meant to Help the Poor. A Billionaire Ended Up Winning Big.
Opportunity zones are meant to spur new investment in poor areas. But Under Armour’s Kevin Plank is getting a tax break for investments that are not new and not in a poor tract. And Plank’s area was picked over neighborhoods that are actually poor.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-one-trump-tax-cut-meant-to-help-the-poor-a-billionaire-ended-up-winning-big

Under a six-lane span of freeway leading into downtown Baltimore sit what may be the most valuable parking spaces in America.

Lying near a development project controlled by Under Armour’s billionaire CEO Kevin Plank, one of Maryland’s richest men, and Goldman Sachs, the little sliver of land will allow Plank and the other investors to claim what could amount to millions in tax breaks for the project, known as Port Covington.

They have President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul law to thank. The new law has a provision meant to spur investment into underdeveloped areas, called “opportunity zones.” The idea is to grant lucrative tax breaks to encourage new investment in poor areas around the country, carefully selected by each state’s governor.

But Port Covington, an ambitious development geared to millennials to feature offices, a hotel, apartments, and shopping, is not in a census tract that is poor. It’s not a new investment. And the census tract only became eligible to be an opportunity zone thanks to a mapping error.

As the selection process was underway, a deputy chief of staff to Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan wrote in an email that “Port Covington does not qualify” as an opportunity zone.

Hogan chose the area for the program anyway — after his aides met with the lobbyists for Plank, who owns about 40% of the zone.

“This is a classic example of a windfall benefit,” said Robert Stoker, a George Washington University professor who has studied economic development in Baltimore for decades. “A major investment was already planned and now is in a zone where they are going to qualify for all kinds of beneficial tax treatment.”

In selecting Port Covington, Hogan r had to exclude another Maryland community from the opportunity zone program. In Baltimore, for example, the governor dropped part of a neighborhood that city officials recommended for the program — Brooklyn — with a median family income one-fifth that of Port Covington. Brooklyn sits just across the Patapsco river from Port Covington, in an area that suffers from one of the highest drug and alcohol death rates in Baltimore, which in turn has one of the highest drug fatality rates nationwide.

Surprise. Republican governor helps the billionaire with the tax cut designed to help poor people.

I'm open to good-faith arguments about how this might actually be a good idea. Good-faith only, please - and "improving the state economy helps the poor" isn't specific enough. Did we really need to give this windfall benefit to a billionaire?

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that's pretty messed up

But under armour is doing a lot of good for Baltimore and they are building a new neighborhood in a totally under used part of the city

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, that's pretty messed up

But under armour is doing a lot of good for Baltimore and they are building a new neighborhood in a totally under used part of the city

But who will benefit from the building of the new neighborhood? And since he will make a lot of money from the development, why does he need public funds to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, that's pretty messed up

But under armour is doing a lot of good for Baltimore and they are building a new neighborhood in a totally under used part of the city

But who will benefit from the building of the new neighborhood? And since he will make a lot of money from the development, why does he need public funds to do it?

Windfall tax cut.

And WE are the ones paying for it. Taxpayers pay for corporate welfare.

Is Kevin Plank one of the majority of billionaires that quietly funds rightwing causes? Or is he one of the rare liberal/centrist billionaires?

[Anonymous]

The worrying part about this is how Hogan seems to have personally steered the tax cut to the billionaire.

Shrug. Republicans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, that's pretty messed up

But under armour is doing a lot of good for Baltimore and they are building a new neighborhood in a totally under used part of the city

UnderArmour can do that without public money resulting from

1. technical mapping issues
2. the governor's willingness to disregard the purpose of the program

[Anonymous]

My husband works for the state and I can guarantee you that there are so many financial types of shenanigans going on with the governor that we don’t know about and I’m sure will increasingly come out with time. Hogan works for his buddies and billionaires, not for the people of Maryland.

[Anonymous]

I think everyone knew that the Opportunity Zones would be boondoggles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband works for the state and I can guarantee you that there are so many financial types of shenanigans going on with the governor that we don’t know about and I’m sure will increasingly come out with time. Hogan works for his buddies and billionaires, not for the people of Maryland.

Really. I'm sure.