IDA Subsidy Accountability
Tracking $185B+ in corporate tax subsidies across 24 states with data. We cross-reference subsidy recipients against campaign finance records to document correlations between public money and political donations.
Data last updated 2026-03-16
Industrial Development Agencies and similar subsidy programs operate across more than 30 states, granting billions in property tax exemptions with minimal public accountability. Our analysis cross-references subsidy beneficiaries against campaign finance records, lobbying disclosures, and federal enforcement actions.
What we found
Across the 14 states with complete donor-subsidy crossref analysis, 22-28% of subsidy beneficiaries also donated to political campaigns affiliated with the officials who control subsidy approvals. This rate is 2-3 times the baseline business donation rate in most states (derived from Census County Business Patterns; all ratios are upper bounds).
Formal regression analysis using 438,714 New York organization donors as controls estimates that subsidy recipients donate approximately 130% more than non-recipient organizations in the same county and era (OLS, p < 0.001). A logit model finds recipients are 19 percentage points more likely to be substantive donors ($1,000+). These findings document a correlation; they do not establish that donations caused approvals.
Status and caveats
This investigation is in beta. Findings are sourced from public records and reproducible, but the project has not completed full peer review across all states. Specific caveats:
- All control group ratios are upper bounds — Census CBP covers employer establishments only; the true baseline donation rate is likely higher
- State-level variance exists — FL (36.1%) and CA (42.3%) are outliers above the 22-28% core range; CA is inflated by labor unions in CalAccess data
- Donation timing: post-approval collapse confirmed — Callaway-Sant’Anna doubly-robust estimator finds donations decline −3.11 log points after IDA approval (p<0.001), with a pre-approval surge in the 1-2 years before the vote. Prior TWFE event study was superseded after Goodman-Bacon decomposition showed 95.7% forbidden comparisons. (Updated 2026-04-16.)
- Spike methodology is transitioning — some states use z-score detection, others have been rerun with nonparametric tests (see methodology)
Flagship analysis: New York
New York has the deepest data: 104 IDAs, $12.19B in tracked exemptions, 2,753 county-level scorecards.