North Carolina is officially official.

Chauncey Dupree
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June 03, 2009
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Apple dropping $1 Billion over 10 years on the Tar Heel State...

The rumors have been swirling for weeks, but as per the Governor's words, it is official.  Gov. Beverly Perdue signed the incentives bill targeting Apple into law today.

"North Carolina continues to be a prime location for growing and expanding global technology companies," Perdue said in a news release. "We welcome Apple to North Carolina and look forward to working with the company as it begins providing a significant economic boost to local communities and the state."

The data center will only employ 50+ people full-time as the billion-dollar investment is made over nine years and includes mostly non-wage costs.

The tax break could be worth about $46 million in the next decade, according to a memo by legislative fiscal staffers. Apple could, however, save more than $300 million on its corporate taxes if the server farm is in place for 30 years, based on the memo.

Google Inc. opened a similar data center last year near Lenoir in the western North Carolina foothills. In 2007, state and local governments offered Google an incentives package worth up to $260 million over 30 years, one of the largest in state history, to land the $600 million data complex.

 

Comments (8)

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 2:03pm

I guess tax breaks plus plenty of cheap coal-based power and somewhat central location on the east coast made it a winner for Apple.

But the state giving up $46 million for 50 jobs sounds crazy - the state is basically paying $92,000 per year per job.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 2:55pm

i don't see how this is a big win...don't server farms have to exist somewhere close to the places they are serving anyhow? it's not like apple could put all its servers in china for example and have good service the world over....as far as i understand it....apple can afford this without tax breaks--i do not like special exceptions being made for any company--they should pay their fare share of taxes---they have so much money in the bank it's crazy; they won't invest it or give it back to the shareholders, getting ridiculous

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 3:52pm

Everyone complains about tax breaks. We all pay to much tax as it is. Good for Apple for being able to get it. Now if Washington would help out the rest of us we all could put our money were we want it to go and the economy would be zooming. I don't think that's going to happen for 3 1/2 years!!!

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 3:54pm

Amen

LoveMac s (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 5:40pm

The whole industry is heading to Clouds, and if so I do not think the location matters. As for clouds I mean there are huge multi-billion projects going on, where all you will need is your monitor, keyboard and mouse. You will purchase the specs of your machine but not the machine and everything is on clouds. I heard some companies are preparing such farms below ocean seas levels for reduced cooling costs. So the location does not matter.

LoveMac s (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 5:41pm

The whole industry is heading to Clouds, and if so I do not think the location matters. As for clouds I mean there are huge multi-billion projects going on, where all you will need is your monitor, keyboard and mouse. You will purchase the specs of your machine but not the machine and everything is on clouds. I heard some companies are preparing such farms below ocean seas levels for reduced cooling costs. So the location does not matter.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 03, 2009 - 5:43pm

yes, it's true we give our money in taxes to the government, but people forget the government's debt and spending is also *our* debt and spending--they spend and go into debt on our behalf; corporations benefit from that spending, they couldn't exist without public infrastructure and public education, so they benefit the most from government investing in terms of capital return but they are the most likely to be the least honest when it comes to paying their taxes--they have all sorts of schemes for getting out of paying what they owe

i feel patriotic paying my taxes---i was strongly against the iraq war, but i recognize that i live in a civilization that elected people who brought us into two wars, and because of that my tax money goes toward continuing those two wars--just because you disagree with government spending doesn't give you the right to abdicate your responsibility to pay taxes, the government has spent money in each of our names and we cannot say that it did it against our collective will--each person in office we elected into office, whether we individually approve of that politician or not

that's from a progressive POV; a conservative might disagree with obama's stimulus package--but the fact is unless you want anarchy you have to resign yourself to the fact that living in a civilization means we elect together one leader and we can't all say we're sick of paying taxes because of whoever is in charge at the moment--there was a surplus when bush came into office and he left us with the largest deficit the US has ever known--so the idea of blaming obama at all is kind of ridiculous, but regardless, *we* elected him, that's what it means to live in a country, you can't opt out when your favorite doesn't win

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | June 04, 2009 - 9:19am

Amen