Gorodenkoff/Adobe Stock Photo
Gorodenkoff/Adobe Stock Photo
Amazon received $22 million in subsidies, tax breaks, and grants from Iowa communities for two projects.
Advocacy group Good Jobs First, which opposes such subsidies, found Iowa provided the 27th-highest amount of grants and breaks among U.S. states to the nearly $1-trillion company.
Iowa is ranked behind Mississippi (3 projects/$24 million) and ahead of Kansas (2 projects/$22 million), Colorado (9 projects/$16 million), and Oklahoma (5 projects/$11 million).
The most expensive subsidy provided in Iowa was by the Bondurant government, which offered $19 million to Amazon in local tax abatements and infrastructure improvements (of which some costs were covered by the state.
The second largest subsidy was worth $4 million in road improvements in Davenport, as well as a 10-year property tax abatement. The opening of a facility in Davenport was delayed until 2024.
There were no developments which received undisclosed subsidy amounts.
Iowa tries to incentivise major technology companies through subsidies, low energy costs, and cheap land costs.
Iowa is home to many large data centres, which have very little oversight and provided information about data centre subsidies and tax breaks..
As of Nov. 17, 2022, Amazon had received 310 separate tax break deals from local and state governments across the U.S., totaling $5.14 billion. The state of Virginia was home to the largest portion of these taxpayer-subsidized Amazon projects.
| State | # Projects | Total Subsidy |
|---|---|---|
| Virginia | 20 | $824,291,799 |
| Illinois | 16 | $732,973,199 |
| New York | 22 | $671,446,986 |
| Washington | 10 | $608,644,670 |
| Oregon | 32 | $483,459,645 |
| Texas | 13 | $305,959,751 |
| Ohio | 14 | $172,418,555 |
| Tennessee | 20 | $166,030,438 |
| Kentucky | 21 | $111,789,976 |
| Missouri | 2 | $110,600,000 |
| Massachusetts | 5 | $86,979,275 |
| California | 12 | $84,541,000 |
| Michigan | 5 | $82,352,146 |
| Maryland | 3 | $68,425,000 |
| South Carolina | 5 | $64,297,962 |
| Indiana | 15 | $60,389,500 |
| Alabama | 2 | $56,500,000 |
| Wisconsin | 6 | $54,135,500 |
| Louisiana | 7 | $48,967,587 |
| New Jersey | 3 | $45,422,240 |
| Florida | 13 | $43,239,475 |
| Connecticut | 3 | $37,700,000 |
| North Carolina | 5 | $31,186,975 |
| Pennsylvania | 4 | $29,557,871 |
| Georgia | 5 | $27,115,929 |
| Mississippi | 3 | $23,925,795 |
| Iowa | 2 | $22,400,000 |
| Kansas | 2 | $21,802,522 |
| Colorado | 9 | $15,779,091 |
| Oklahoma | 5 | $11,207,651 |
| Utah | 3 | $9,780,226 |
| Delaware | 2 | $7,972,500 |
| Minnesota | 1 | $5,700,000 |
| New Mexico | 1 | $5,244,071 |
| Arizona | 2 | $5,139,671 |
| Nevada | 5 | $3,251,324 |
| Rhode Island | 1 | $2,700,000 |
| Maine | 11 | $578,828 |
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