Taxpayers will subsidize 40% of Micron’s first phase in Central New York

Syracuse, N.Y. – Taxpayers will subsidize about 40% of the first phase of Micron Technology’s massive chipmaking complex in Central New York, the company confirmed in new filings with Onondaga County.

Total tax subsidies from federal, state and local taxpayers for the development in the town of Clay will be $19.9 billion, Micron said in new documents released by the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency. Micron says it will spend $48 billion to build the two fabrication plants, or fabs.

Micron says it plans to add two more fabs over 20 years, for a total investment of $100 billion.

Last month, a syracuse.com investigation estimated the total subsidies at more than $20 billion to build fabs in Clay and Idaho, with most of that money coming to Clay.

It’s a lucrative deal for an American company that earned a $43 billion profit over the past decade by building chips overseas. That gigantic public support is key, national leaders say, to bringing chipmakers like Micron back from Asia to the U.S.

The subsidies are for the first half of what Micron says could be a $100 billion project to build four fabs in the town of Clay.

The biggest chunk of those subsidies, as syracuse.com reported last month, will be the investment tax credit Micron can claim under the federal CHIPS Act. Micron estimates that break alone will be $11.3 billion. The credit is what’s known as refundable, meaning the company gets the money even if that total exceeds the taxes for the year.

The numbers were contained in an updated application Micron filed with OCIDA and made public Wednesday. For the first time, Micron broke down how it will pay to build two fabs in the next decade, and where the money will come from. Here’s how that breaks down:

• $5.5 billion in bank loans
• $25.2 billion in equity
• $4.6 billion from the federal CHIPS Act grant
• $11.3 billion from the CHIPS Act investment tax credit
• $2.2 billion from the state Green CHIPS Act
• $1.8 billion from county and state sales tax exemptions.

The numbers don’t include local property tax breaks, initially estimated at $300 million. The new filings say that break is yet to be determined.

The filing does not reference the $7.5 billion in low-interest loans Micron is eligible to receive from the U.S. government.

Micron’s original application for the local tax breaks was filed a year ago, but IDA Executive Director Bob Petrovich said a new one was required after the federal government announced the CHIPS grant in April.

In exchange for all of those taxpayer subsidies, Micron says it will hire 4,800 people for the first two fabs in Clay. That means each of those permanent jobs would cost taxpayers more than $4 million. Micron has said the average pay for workers in Clay would exceed $100,000.

Thousands of construction jobs would also be created.

Micron was awarded $6.1 billion from the CHIPS Act. That money was for both Clay fabs and a fab the company is building at its headquarters in Boise, Idaho.

The incentives are huge, but Micron’s impact will be, too. The planned complex in Clay would be the biggest private investment ever made in New York state. The Clay project has the potential to transform Central New York’s economic landscape and increase Onondaga County’s population by more than 100,000 people. It could have an economic impact of nearly $17 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by New York state.