Sears Considers Leaving Illinois, Governor Quinn Fighting To Keep Them

Since Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a controversial income tax hike into law, several big businesses with headquarters in the state have publicly considered leaving. On Monday, Gov. Quinn told reporters he was working to keep Sears Holdings Corp. from flying the coop.

According to Crain's Chicago Business, Sears has been in talks with North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and New Jersey about leaving the Hoffman Estates-based headquarters after their state and local tax incentives expire in 2012.

"We do owe it to our associates and shareholders to consider options and alternatives and intend to be very thoughtful and thorough in our deliberations," a Sears spokesman said in a statement. "It is still very early in the process."

Sears Roebuck and Co. moved into the Hoffman Estates offices after leaving its home in Chicago's Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) 22 years ago. It was reportedly set to open up shop in North Carolina, when Illinois offered them $100 million in state infrastructure money to stay.

The company has since become a vital part of the community: at least 6,000 Sears employees live in the Chicago suburbs, and an additional 9,000 have jobs with nearby businesses, vendors and contractors, according to the Daily Herald.

The Daily Herald sums up how destructive the move would be to the area:

Besides the loss of roughly 15,000 jobs, a Sears move out of state would lead to the loss of millions in tax revenue, according to the impact study Sears commissioned from Gruen Gruen & Associates and the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory.

“Annual tax revenues to the state of Illinois will decline by $130.7 million,” the study said. “Annual tax revenues to the Chicago region will decline by $112.4 million.”

This is not the first time Gov. Quinn has been asked to expand tax incentives for big businesses to keep them in the state. On Friday, Motorola announced that the state agreed to a $100 million deal to keep their headquarters in suburban Libertyville. The company agreed to spend nearly $600 million in research and development in return.

“We will sit down with the Sears people and their representatives and their elected representatives who are in the area of Hoffman Estates and I’m sure we’ll work out something that will work for the company but, more importantly, work for the common good, for the workers, for the jobs," Quinn said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Legislation is also pending in Springfield that would extend Sears' deal 15 years if the company keeps a certain number of local employees.

Comments

[Steve Bruesewitz]

01:17 PM on 05/15/2011

:Some folks rob you with a gun and some with a fountain pen" Woody Guthrey
These crooks are even using a mask, except for the media that don't report this as the theft it is.

[yournext865]

05:36 PM on 05/11/2011

they are still probably going to leave even if quinn makes all those concessions.

[Steve Shonder]

02:04 PM on 05/11/2011

I can see it now. Quinn is going to give Sears so many tax breaks that the tax hike doesn't even matter.

[Bude]

01:18 AM on 05/11/2011

Sears belongs in Wisconsin.

[yournext865]

10:13 PM on 05/10/2011

ah blackmailing i see!

[lakefront liberal]

02:54 PM on 05/10/2011

These corporations have been playing this game for years. The first time that I remember this was when I was a child the mid-1980s in Kentucky. We competed against other states for one of the first Toyota plants in the US. It's not about taxes--I doubt Sears has payed their fare share of income taxes in this state for years. We're only facilitating this type of blackmail by giving these companies sweet deals with tax breaks and other incentives. Guess who pays--it's the individual tax payers of the state and NOT the coporations who have record profits and flush balance sheets only a couple of years after the great recession. They're playing the game and our politicians are falling for it. This is only a race to the bottom for all of us. They make out and we continue to to pay.

[ejhickey]

01:19 PM on 05/10/2011

Why is Quinn, a Democrat, giving special deals to wealthy corporations? this is not the first time he has given a handout to a large corporation. anyone remember the $3.5 million given to Groupon on October 25, 2010? Groupon is a multibillion corporation that hardly needed the money. then there was International Paper that got $1million from Quinn in 2009 , supposedly to build a warehouse in southern Illinois. to date- No warehouse but IP still has the money. Is Quinn a closet Republican like Daley?

[Mechelle Gray]

01:06 PM on 05/10/2011

Sears is "gangster!" Wow!

[rusterile]

12:18 PM on 05/10/2011

If you give up 300 million to save 200 million are you ahead or behind? Saving jobs in exchange for higher deficits does not make sense for a state that is already in the red. The only way this would work is if the tax breaks were less than the tax revenue collected.

[Monk2001]

11:10 AM on 05/10/2011

IDK..... IF by giving them 100 million in incentives to stay creates 130 million in revenue I'd just do it. Especially if these comps promise to not outsource positions, invest in R&D and will stay for a good number of years.

R&D should lead to even more jobs and rev to the state. Also making it harder for that company to leave the area.

[SAdams1987]

10:55 AM on 05/10/2011

Aren't the tax incentives that Quinn is proposing similar to the tax incentives given by Walker in Wisconsin? This is just further proof that only the well connected stand to benefit from high tax policies, and the burden will be paid by those small and medium sized businesses. Cut the tax rates so that those small and medium sized businesses can fairly compete.

[ChicagoKnowsBest]

10:54 AM on 05/10/2011

Call their Bluff!

[SAdams1987]

10:57 AM on 05/10/2011

Great idea. Have thousands of jobs leave your state, while the burden of taxation is increased on your small and medium sized businesses that are not politically connected.

[Monk2001]

11:13 AM on 05/10/2011

I'm a progressive and typically side with you on this. BUT if you give the corp 100 million in incentives to stay and it will get you 130 million in tax rev then you've just made +30 million in tax rev. PLUS you keep 1000's employed by doing so AND their salaries are spent into the communities.

PLUS they promised to invest 600 million in R&D. That's money that should hopefully cause growth and expansion and not only create new jobs but further cement that company in Hoff Estates making it harder to go to the South.

[rusterile]

12:27 PM on 05/10/2011

Yes but will this happen? Or will Sears just take the money and not come through as promised? And is the potential tax rev 130 million or just 70 million. Figures don't lie but liarsdo figure.

[john1513]

09:42 AM on 05/10/2011

"You can all go to hell, I'm going to Texas."
- Davy Crockett

[jeffbiss]

09:42 AM on 05/10/2011

More corporate extortion! This is how business works. It feels entitled to have the American people subsidize its operation, as in socializing cost and privatizing profits. This is how warped our system has become. It's time to revoke corporate charters and take away the legal protections that the people provide them.

[Bude]

09:32 AM on 05/10/2011

There's no more American company than Sears. Seems they have put their patriotism aside to extort Illinois taxpayers for some good old corporate welfare.

I will never shop at Sears again.

[jeffbiss]

09:44 AM on 05/10/2011

I remember when they extorted money from the state and Hoffman Estates when they moved from Chicago. Corporations see that they are owed a profit for the benefit of their share holders. They destroyed farm land to create a hole in which the state dumps taxpayer money for the benefit of Wall Street.

[Repubnomore]

10:24 AM on 05/10/2011

Even worse they tore down the Poplar Creek Music Theater to do it! Now we're stuck with that crappy World / Tweeter / whateverthehellitscalled place down in Tinley Park.

[SAdams1987]

10:58 AM on 05/10/2011

Yeah, you should be excited for sears and the thousands of jobs to move to a low tax state then, so they won't be extorting Ill anymore.

[SAdams1987]

11:01 AM on 05/10/2011

So you would rather them move and receive no tax in Ill then have them stay and only collect some tax? I just don't understand liberal logic.

[jeffbiss]

12:25 PM on 05/10/2011

I would rather that corporations be forced to pay their fair share of taxes or forfeit the protections that incorporation provides them by the public. To consider that paying a small amount of taxes rather than none as acceptable is absurd. How small is "some" tax? $1? Corporations are not persons, they are legal entities despite what the SCOTUS has ruled. Their status should be changed in law to obviate "personhood" and corporations should be forced to act in the public interest otherwise they lose the protections provided by incorporation.

Conservative logic obviously perceives serfdom acceptable, I don't.