Oregon Changes Tax Rules to Lure Google Fiber

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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The legislators and Governor of the State of Oregon must want to entice Google Fiber to the state pretty badly, so badly in fact that the whole bunch of them got together this week and amended the state’s law concerning corporate taxation just to accommodate Google Fiber. This was the state's second attempt at rewriting the tax laws to lure Google Fiber to the area.

The bill, signed yesterday by Gov. Kate Brown, "exempts 'gigabit' Internet service like Google's from a thorny property tax that dates to the 1970s and was originally intended for microwave towers.
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Oregon, once an ecologically aware state is now living totally on it's rep. There's nothing there but money grubbing rot in office, just like everywhere else in the nation. Fuk those people who want to give a gazillion dollar corp a tax break.
 
mwallek said:
Oregon, once an ecologically aware state is now living totally on it's rep. There's nothing there but money grubbing rot in office, just like everywhere else in the nation. Fuk those people who want to give a gazillion dollar corp a tax break.
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I think the citizens would be happy to give Netflix a tax break just to have a workable alternative to the cable and phone incumbents. Beats the hell out of all those sports arena subsidies that always get passed.
 
We don't actually fix and simplify tax laws, we add loopholes and exemptions and thus make them even more "thorny" and baffling to everyone.
 
Tax breaks aren't going to help the fact that there isn't enough room on the poles for them. Have fun dealing with PGE.
 
Property taxes in general can be "thorny"... but that Oregon rule that the value the property is to be taxed at depends upon how successful the company is who's using it is downright batshit insane. Nice that gigabit gets an exemption, but how about other fucking places? are any other big name companies ever going to set up shop there knowing their property tax is directly tied to how successful the overall company is?
 
I guess all the cable and and Internet service providers will just have to meet the base requirements of gigabit to get the same breaks
 
As an Oregon resident, I'm split on this.I want google fiber but at what cost? I will say Comcast is probably getting worried now.
 
Funny thing is, Google is actually a bigger monopoly than Comcast at this point. Compared to Comcast, Google has more than twice the total equity, more than twice the net income. People worry so much about Comcast especially in context of their potential merger with Time Warner, but how is that any worse than having your ISP as the same company that dominates internet search and internet advertising?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Property taxes in general can be "thorny"... but that Oregon rule that the value the property is to be taxed at depends upon how successful the company is who's using it is downright batshit insane. Nice that gigabit gets an exemption, but how about other fucking places? are any other big name companies ever going to set up shop there knowing their property tax is directly tied to how successful the overall company is?
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That sounds unreasonable.


GotNoRice said:
Funny thing is, Google is actually a bigger monopoly than Comcast at this point. Compared to Comcast, Google has more than twice the total equity, more than twice the net income. People worry so much about Comcast especially in context of their potential merger with Time Warner, but how is that any worse than having your ISP as the same company that dominates internet search and internet advertising?
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The concept of having an ISP that also dominates internet search & advertising makes what is already discussed and the union one that conjures the word 'monopoly', also makes it unreasonable by yet another degree. :(
 
GotNoRice said:
Funny thing is, Google is actually a bigger monopoly than Comcast at this point. Compared to Comcast, Google has more than twice the total equity, more than twice the net income. People worry so much about Comcast especially in context of their potential merger with Time Warner, but how is that any worse than having your ISP as the same company that dominates internet search and internet advertising?
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Its not but I don't think many have had the experiences with Google as they have with Comcast or Time Warner. All the negative experiences people have suffered, tends to lend a blind eye to the new kid that may be just as bad or worse in the long run.

Time will tell
 
GotNoRice said:
Funny thing is, Google is actually a bigger monopoly than Comcast at this point. Compared to Comcast, Google has more than twice the total equity, more than twice the net income. People worry so much about Comcast especially in context of their potential merger with Time Warner, but how is that any worse than having your ISP as the same company that dominates internet search and internet advertising?
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They are a bigger company than Comcast, not a monopoly. Anyone with an internet connection is free to use bing, yahoo, ask, or any number of search engines. Yes Google is the most used, but it's not that way because it's the only choice.
 
sfsuphysics said:
They are a bigger company than Comcast, not a monopoly. Anyone with an internet connection is free to use bing, yahoo, ask, or any number of search engines. Yes Google is the most used, but it's not that way because it's the only choice.
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It becomes an issue when people start to have Google as their ISP. That creates conflict of interest situations. The ways in which Google could manipulate things for their benefit are almost endless.

You can argue that Google is not a "monopoly" but I would argue that Comcast is not either.
 
Google *isn't* a monopoly.

And, actuallly, Comcast *IS* a monopoly.
If you try to argue otherwise, I challenge you to obtain cable TV/Internet service in your area from someone OTHER than your local cable incumbent.

In addition, you have Comcast SHARING (rather than competing for) market with AT&T.
 
Chas said:
And, actuallly, Comcast *IS* a monopoly.
If you try to argue otherwise, I challenge you to obtain cable TV/Internet service in your area from someone OTHER than your local cable incumbent.
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We have AT&T UVerse, which gives us just as many TV channels as Comcast does. Do you not consider that to be competition just because it doesn't go over physical Cable TV lines? :rolleyes:
 
GotNoRice said:
We have AT&T UVerse, which gives us just as many TV channels as Comcast does. Do you not consider that to be competition just because it doesn't go over physical Cable TV lines? :rolleyes:
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No. I don't consider it competition because it isn't. It's Comcast and AT&T SHARING a market instead of competing for it. You don't have competitors in this case, you have a price-fixing cartel.
 
Chas said:
No. I don't consider it competition because it isn't. It's Comcast and AT&T SHARING a market instead of competing for it. You don't have competitors in this case, you have a price-fixing cartel.
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How do you define them as "sharing" a market? They both offer similar services and directly compete against one another. Over the years we've got great prices by switching back and forth between Comcast and UVerse a number of times, when one is willing to offer us a better deal. That's practically the definition of competition. Do you think AT&T "shares" a market with Verizon also? :rolleyes:
 
mwallek said:
Oregon, once an ecologically aware state is now living totally on it's rep. There's nothing there but money grubbing rot in office, just like everywhere else in the nation. Fuk those people who want to give a gazillion dollar corp a tax break.
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She didn't want to become governor. The old one resigned a couple months ago. Kate Brown seems to be doing ok. Not that great at public speaking (yesterdays State of the State address), but she's doing ok.

Google was going to go to PDX until they screwed it up... Google is expanding their data center in The Dalles, though, which is cool (I interviewed there a while back - ended up at Amazon in Boardman before moving to my current job). Google, Facebook, Amazon have a pretty good presence in Oregon, along with Intel and others. We're not the timber state we used to be.

If we can get more jobs in the state, tax breaks are welcome. Just not so much that the tax payer has to flip the bill for them. In Eastern Oregon, our rural electric co-op fucked up by giving Amazon some breaks. They are using way more power (and added a few data centers) to make it so that we're paying more for power as we're high consumers of power now....
 
GotNoRice said:
It becomes an issue when people start to have Google as their ISP. That creates conflict of interest situations. The ways in which Google could manipulate things for their benefit are almost endless.

You can argue that Google is not a "monopoly" but I would argue that Comcast is not either.
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I argue that Google is not a monopoly in the sense that if I want to search online I have the choice to do so, in areas where GoogleFiber is in you can argue the are a person use fiber monopoly sure, but very often there are other very high speed options (100Mbps+ through cable is not unheard of).

I can argue Comcast is a monopoly for true broadband service because no other company can get me speeds exceeding 25Mbps (or whatever it's been bumped to) at my house. Yes there is AT&T and a handful of other xDSL type of providers but they are all giving "high speed internet" only, Comcast is the only one that can give actual broadband speeds.
 
Edit:(crap I'm tired)
where GoogleFiber is in you can argue they are a personal use fiber monopoly sure
 
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