Saturday, December 9, 2023
Friday, December 8, 2023
Foxconn awarded $6.3 million in tax credits for meeting jobs, capital investment goals
The company has been approved for $6.3 million in tax credits from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., for hiring 1,029 full-time workers and investing more than $26 million at its facilities in Racine County for work done in fiscal year 2022.
This year's credit is $2.3 million less than what the company received last year.
Since 2020 Foxconn has received a roughly $43.6 million from taxpayers, which does not include land acquisition or infrastructure upgrades on the property in Mount Pleasant. Foxconn has received more than half of the funding it agreed to under the renegotiated deal with the state in 2021 and could receive up to $80 million through 2025.
In a statement on Thursday the company said it is "committed to Wisconsin and looks forward to growing with the state, county, and village."
"Foxconn has invested over $1 billion in Wisconsin and created approximately 1,000 jobs, a 42% increase over a three-year period and comprising a fifth of our workforce in the United States," the company said. "Foxconn currently manufactures data servers and microinverters in Wisconsin, and the campus remains a strategic asset for the company to respond to market demand with speed and flexibility.”
Foxconn was notified of the credits in a letter from the WEDC in November.
If the company wants to receive the full amount of tax credits from the state next year, it will need to hire at least 134 full-time employees and maintain a minimum of 1,163 full-time employees through 2025. According to the agreement, the company's goal is to employ 1,454 workers by 2026.
More:Here's a short timeline of Foxconn's plans and development in Wisconsin
Current reality far different than when original deal was signed
In 2017, then-Gov. Scott Walker and Foxconn agreed to a $2.85 billion tax incentive package if the company met certain hiring and capital investment goals. At the time Foxconn was promised to bring 13,000 high-tech jobs to Wisconsin and create a massive large-screen LCD manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant
But by 2021, the development changed significantly from what was talked about four years earlier.
Foxconn was not awarded any credits in the first two years of the deal.
Gov. Tony Evers and officials at the WEDC renegotiated the deal and brought the job numbers down to under 1,500 and the maximum tax credit over the course of the agreement down to $80 million.
Foxconn's physical footprint in Mount Pleasant is also shrinking.
The company agreed to give up its development options on more than 1,300 acres in Wisconsin Innovation Park that will be used by Microsoft to develop a multi-billion-dollar data center complex east and north of Foxconn's campus. Microsoft has promised to build $1.4 billion in new property value by Jan. 1, 2028.
The company began construction this fall on the first building on a 2315 acre parcel that it bought from the village for $50 million. The sale of an additional 1,030 acres is scheduled to close by the end of the month.
The Milwaukee Business Journal first reported the award of tax credits.