Office Max now thinks ADM had a pretty good idea. . .

This is how things work in Illinois: all the little people pay their taxes, as do all the small businesses. But if you’re big and powerful, just make a few demands. Not just for reductions of their taxes owed, but for cash back, in the form of being able to hold onto the state tax withholdings from their employees.

ADM made that play in its “threat” to move its headquarters outside of Illinois (even though no other location makes as much sense for its business as Chicago). Now Office Max, merging with Office Depot, is playing the same game, trying to get the best offer from Illinois or Florida, where Office Depot is headquartered. Link here (not sure if this is behind a firewall). Here are the key paragraphs:

Democratic state Sen. Thomas Cullerton of Villa Park introduced a bill in June worth roughly $30 million in tax credits over 10 years if the company retained a non-retail workforce of 2,000 and made a $150 million capital investment in the state. Cullerton said at the time that terms could change once the merger was completed.

A new bill is expected to be introduced that would combine the OfficeMax request with those of other companies seeking to keep their employees’ personal income tax withholdings instead of forwarding them to the state.

And this is the end of the article — exactly how many companies is the legislature planning on giving the cash to? (Because that’s basically what this is — keeping the money that they deduct from workers’ paychecks for state income tax is not a reduction in their taxes, it’s extra cash.)