OfficeMax Asks Illinois for Tax Incentives

The merger of office supply warehouse store giants Office Depot Inc. and OfficeMax Inc. have given the two companies an opportunity to play Florida and Illinois against each other.  The two companies' CEOs are asking for huge tax handouts from the states to keep the corporate headquarters in their current states (OfficeMax in Illinois and Office Depot in Florida).

According to an article in today's Chicago Tribune, OfficeMax CEO Ravi Saligram has asked Illinois legislators to allow the company  keep the state tax withholdings of employees for 10 to 15 years after it completes its merger with rival Office Depot.

Saligram refused to reveal the amount of the taxes, claiming that he was keeping the figure secret because he didn't want to start a bidding war for the new company's corporate headquarters and distribution centers. The new company, he told the House Revenue and Finance Committee, will retain 2,050 jobs, create 200 jobs and spend $150 million in the state on leases.

Saligram said the CEO of Office Depot, headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla., also is seeking incentives from that state but that he doesn’t know the value of them. He also said that he couldn’t guarantee that the new company's CEO would stay in Naperville, where OfficeMax is based.

A bill is expected to be introduced that would combine the OfficeMax request with those of other companies seeking to keep their employees' personal income tax withholdings instead of forwarding them to the state.

What is the value of keeping a company in the state if it gets to keep all of the state income taxes paid by its employees for the next 10-15 years?  Sure, they sign leases but the bulk of those payments either go to pay interest or to make distributions to the owners.  Just because the properties may be in Illinois doesn't mean that any of that money stays in the state.  And how many of the jobs that OfficeMax is counting are in retail stores that are unaffected by where the headquarters is located?

It sounds like one more big handout to corporate America that makes no economic sense.  Will our lawmakers as usual fall all over themselves to hand out money to big business while the state can't meet its own responsibilities? Tell your Illinois state representative and state senator to WAKE UP.