Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tampa City Council wants an investigation on PricewaterhouseCoopers tax break
Posted by Mitch Perry on Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 1:05 PM
Combined, the council and the Hillsborough County Commission voted to give $1.1 million in subsidies to keep 1,633 jobs here, a vote that observers say was unprecedented in this area. Part of the award also recognized 200 jobs the company promised to create, toward which the county in May already had pledged $120,000.
But members of both local governments have reacted with disdain after an official with PwC said earlier this week that "we never considered moving those 2,000 jobs out of Tampa."
Council member Mary Mulhern, acting as chair of the council with Charlie Miranda absent, expressed her discontent by originally discussing the possibility that the council get an opportunity to revisit that vote, as well as have staff conduct an investigation (though she said that Urban Development director Bob McDonough was already doing so).
But she later backed off on the idea of a re-vote, since there could be legal ramifications revolving around the fact that PricewaterhouseCoopers was not identified at the time as the recipient of such a tax break last week.
Earlier this week the St. Pete Times reported that there have been several previous occasions when PWC "several times" made promises to create jobs that never came to fruition.
Based on government documents, PricewaterhouseCoopers has several times made promises to create jobs here that never materialized. Since 1997, the company has entered into four previous agreements with state and local authorities to receive tax rebates for creating high-paying jobs. Had the firm met requirements of the agreements, it would have received millions of dollars in rebates for creating at least 1,045 jobs. However, three of the agreements were a bust. Only one made it past the first year: a pledge in 2005 to create at least 320 jobs paying at least $49,000 each. For meeting those terms, the firm was eligible to receive up to almost $1 million from the city, county and state.
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