A few weeks ago, the Pennsylvania General Assembly fast-tracked a bill in the waning days of the legislative session to allow certain private companies to keep most of the state income taxes of new employees. News reports to follow indicated the new tax giveaway was designed to lure California-based software firm Oracle to State College.
A few weeks ago, the Pennsylvania General Assembly fast-tracked a bill in the waning days of the legislative session to allow certain private companies to keep most of the state income taxes of new employees. News reports to follow indicated the new tax giveaway was designed to lure California-based software firm Oracle to State College.
Well, it turns out the CEO of Oracle, which will benefit from the largess of Pennsylvania taxpayers, recently bought his very own Hawaiian island, as CNN reported back in June.
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, the third richest man in the U.S., purchased about 98% of Lana’i, the sixth largest of the Hawaiian islands. Forbes reported that the deal was rumored to be worth $500 million.
As CNN tells us:
The island includes two luxury resorts, two golf courses, two club houses and 88,000 acres of land, according to a document filed with the Public Utilities Commission.
Which bring us back to Pennsylvania, where Governor Corbett recently signed House Bill 2626, allowing qualifying companies that create at least 250 new jobs within five years to pocket 95% of the personal income taxes paid by the new employees.
Legislative sources told The Philadelphia Inquirer that “the bill was designed to lure California-based Oracle, the world’s third-largest software maker with $37 billion in revenue last year, to open a facility in the Penn State region, which would provide a pool of highly educated job seekers.”
We’ve already blogged about why this bill is a bad deal for Pennsylvanians, but Larry Ellison’s island provides us with yet another reason.
Oracle should not be pocketing the withholding taxes of new employees in State College, especially at a time when the state is cutting investments in schools and underfunding infrastructure.
And especially when the boss is doing well enough to afford an island in the sun.