NY companies exploit loophole for massive tax breaks

Michelle Breidenbach of The (Syracuse, NY) Post-Standard shows how hundreds of New York companies pulled accounting gimmicks and exploited a loophole in the state law to collect millions of dollars in tax breaks. The companies created new corporations and passed themselves off as new on paper, thus becoming eligible for tax breaks intended for businesses that are truly new. Michelle used state records won through FOI law, corporation and property records, and interviews to identify the so-called "new" companies, which include business that have been in NY for a century.