State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Despite New Rules to Disclose Corporate Tax Breaks, Just Half of Local Governments Are

Governing: Transparency advocates predicted that new rules for governments would result in a treasure trove of data on tax breaks for corporations. But so far, just half of reporting municipalities have disclosed that information.

Of the local government data collected by the tax break transparency group Good Jobs First and analyzed by Governing, a little more than 600 of 1,222 governments did not disclose any revenue lost to tax incentives on their annual financial report. Many of them made no mention of the new accounting rule at all. And while others did, they said their losses were "immaterial" and therefore were not reported. (States are subject to the new rule, too. While most have followed disclosures, their data was not included in the analysis.)

Read article