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Commerce Clause Constraints on State Business Location Incentives

By  |  October 16, 2006

Peter Enrich, Nov 01, 2006

This article considers whether, and to what extent, the Commerce Clause limits the ability of states and localities to engage in the incentive competition that has proliferated in recent decades. In particular, the author argues that well-established Commerce Clause principles forbid a wide range of the location-based tax incentives that states and localities offer to businesses. This article will also canvass a range of limitations and shortcomings of this constitutional constraint on governmental efforts to intervene in business location decisions.

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