I'm digging around Samsung's previous incentives as they negotiate for a third round of incentives from a state program (Chapter 313) as well as the county and city. There is something so obvious that I can't believe I missed this in the past. (1/9)

Samsung applied for a Texas state tax limitation called Chapter 313 in 2005. This means that they get 10 years of tax breaks for investments during this time period. (2/9)

But these investments are phased over years. So an investment at the end of the agreement might only get a year of the tax incentive. (3/9)

These agreements are predicated on future taxes coming onto the rolls. So the whole point is to start taxing on year 11. (4/9)

But Samsung applied for a second Chapter 313 in 2012. So they have overlapping 10 year tax incentives. (5/9)

And now they are applying for a third abatement that will begin right as the second one ends. There are two obvious points here. (6/9)

First, the claim that a 10 year tax abatement pays for itself when taxes go on the rolls in year 11 is laughable in this case. My guess is that they will get another one of these every 10 years. (7/9)

Second, there was an overlap between the first and second tax abatement. This gives the company the ability to game this. An investment at the end of the first agreement might only get a year or two of incentives. If you can shift it to the new agreement, it gets 10 years. (8/9)

The one good thing about this incentive program is there are tons of public documents on the web. I might have to tug at this string a bit more. But it is clear that this is a serial incentive requester and overlapping incentives is troubling. (9/9)