
Before Cuomo fund-raiser, state appeared to fast-track tax credit - task_queue
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/04/8566199/cuomo-fund-raiser-state-appeared-fast-track-tax-credit
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task_queue
Reminder that the Cuomo campaign asked Sony for $50k.

There is a $5k campaign contribution limit to prevent corporate interests from
ruling the political sphere.

They were aware of this limitation, so they used their corp email to ask
employees to contribute to the goal, because Cuomo supports actions that
benefit the company itself.

It is arguable whether this is legal or not, but it certainly is against the
ideal behind the limitation.

[https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/135225](https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/135225)

[https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/49813](https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/49813)

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eli
I'm no particular fan of Cuomo or Sony, but it's unfair to imply this is
illegal or even uncommon behavior.

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arielm
I can't say this surprises me, but as a founder based in NYC who's seen how
unpleasant the city is to small business I'm disgusted by this.

I want NYC to grow into a hub for entrepreneurs and founders, one that's
better than bloated valuation valley, but this sort of behavior will never let
it...

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JshWright
At least he cares about NYC... Those of us in the rest of the state have very
little positive to say about him... Whether it's stripping schools districts
of funding and any sort of local decision making, or the NY SAFE Act (I'm very
pro gun-control... the SAFE act was a _terrible_ bill, passed in a very shady
way), he has been a singularly bad governor, in my opinion.

I miss Patterson...

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HirojaShibe
I would love to see eventually a solid research analysis of this data dump
that maps out the social interactions of these Sony Exces ie: politicians,
each other, other members of the movie industry..etc. Plus how much money Sony
is spending in the political arena and the ROI for Sony Inc.

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alex_anglin
On the one hand, it would be nice. Enrons e-mail data dumps have been used to
this effect for the past decade, especially to show proof of technologies.

On the other hand the Sony data dump, like previous data dumps on Wikileaks,
was illegally obtained. Researchers analyzing and publishing it would be
putting themselves at legal risk by doing so.

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psykovsky
Illegaly obtnaied data is kind of a silly thing. If it's out there and it's
real does it really matter how it was obtained? Does it affect the data
validity? Why wouldn't people be able to analyse it? Nobody could go to jail
because of it, after all. To make it illegal to analyse it and disclose the
findings is really silly.

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sukilot
[Fruit of the poisonous tree]

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psykovsky
Like I said, nobody would go to jail because of the data, even when everybody
knows it is the real deal. But to prosecute people who analyse the data and
publish the findings is going too far, IMO. Nobody is( or should be)
prosecuting journalists for publishing the same kind of data, the same goes
for everybody else.

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CHY872
The article tries to massage some kind of connection between tax breaks and a
re-election campaign. From the information provided, I don't see it. In
particular, if you or I clocked up $26m in tax breaks for a tax year, that
would suggest that you or I were investing (say) $50m into the state every
year.

In that case, as the state, I would be very happy to dedicate an employee or
two to making everything run as smoothly as possible, and yes, getting
expected behaviour out of the tax system is part of that.

While I have sympathy for people who run tiny companies that have different
experiences, it should be clear to the pragmatic that the people who have more
money to spend should receive more attention.

For example, the person who wants to build a 150 floor skyscraper in New York
will be talking to a different part of the zoning commission than the person
who wants to convert a garage into a coffee shop, and that's a good thing.

Where is this anything other than sound commercial practice for New York? Is
there any evidence that this wasn't the case for other companies in similar
positions? I'd be suspicious if (say) the state used this as a bargaining
tool, but it could easily be standard practice.

With the updated article link, sure, the whole thing looks fishy, but I still
don't think this example is necessarily a case of it.

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rhizome
_it should be clear to the pragmatic that the people who have more money to
spend should receive more attention._

This is a matter of culture and not a natural law. You could just as easily
say that people with more money have more time to wait.

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Twirrim
While this is interesting to some extent, surely this emphasises more that
there is something wrong with the state's tax processing? If all the paperwork
was in as necessary, why were they having to pull strings at all to get them
processed?

Why is the state's system so inefficient?

How much money could the state be saving by improving the process?

How much are businesses being negatively impacted by the slow speed these
credits are being processed?

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dnautics
I think there is also a question about whether such extravagant credits only
easily capturable by large entities like Sony should exist - but I agree, the
'outrage' seems to be misdirected at some apparent malfeasance. No. The
outcome was within the law; Sony was legally due the money.

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yownie
why should I care about this?

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rwmj
This is blogspam, can we link instead to:
[http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/04/8566199...](http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/04/8566199/cuomo-
fund-raiser-state-appeared-fast-track-tax-credit)

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sctb
Thanks, we updated the link from
[http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/04/ny-state-
fas...](http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/04/ny-state-fast-
tracks-26-million-tax.html).

