North Carolina Lawmakers Pass "Apple Bill"

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 28

The Charlotte Observer that the North Carolina House of Representatives has approved what’s being described as “the Apple bill.” As I noted Tuesday, the state is in the process trying to lure an Apple data center to the state. The bill effectively lowers the corporate tax rate that Apple would pay, but also requires that the company invest $1 billion in the facility over the course of nine years. It’s said to be written in a such a way that it would apply to only one company, though as you can read here, Apple is never specifically mentioned in the text of the bill.

At stake would be about 50 direct jobs, and then another 250 or so for contractors. Every job counts, as North Carolina, like every other state in the US, has seen its unemployment rate nearly double over the course of the last year, from 5.7% last April to 10.8% as of April 30 this year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Next the bill goes back to the state Senate for re-approval, since the House changed the text. From there it should go to Governor Bev Perdue for signature. Of course all that doesn’t mean that Apple will really locate the data center in North Carolina, it just means that if it decides to do so, it will get a nice tax break.

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