Online retailer Amazon spent just over $156,000 — mostly for lobbyists — in winning a sales tax collection exemption from the Legislature last year over the opposition of other merchants.
Its six lobbyists were paid nearly $137,000 in a battle whose outcome will bring 2,000 jobs to the Midlands by the end of 2013, according to reports available Wednesday. The remainder was for office expenses.
An alliance of national and local retailers who fought the tax break reported spending nearly $253,000 on lobbyists for a variety of matters. Amounts related to the Amazon battle — their main focus — don’t have to be specified, but company officials say the tab is larger than usual.
Video from around the world
The amounts spent trying to influence the Legislature may be only a small part of the overall cost of a fight that resembled a campaign for state office with broadcast ads, mailings and polls.
Much of its cost is “invisible,” said John Crangle, executive director of the political watchdog Common Cause.
The battle mostly was waged through advocacy groups whose activities are exempt from disclosure.
Crangle estimates the tab for the conflict approached $2 million, a total some lobbyists say appears accurate.
The battle pitted some of South Carolina’s leading lobbyists against each other.
Amazon’s team included Richard Davis, Fred Allen, Lynn Stokes-Murray and Richland County Councilman Damon Jeter.
Its opponents’ team included Robert Adams, Tony Denny, Dwight Drake, Kathy Shannon and Ed Playoff.
Davis, a lobbyist for nearly 30 years, is credited with developing a strategy that revived a tax break initially rejected.
“He was our quarterback,” Lexington Mayor Randy Halfacre said. “He called the plays and put us in position to make them.”
The threatened loss of one of the largest recent developments in the Midlands ultimately triumphed over complaints from Amazon rivals that the company was getting a sweetheart deal, Davis said.
Success relied on lining up a statewide network of community leaders who supported the tax break as a trade-off for badly needed jobs, he said.
“We left no stone unturned,” said Davis, listed as being paid $67,000.
In the end, his cellphone was the conduit between Amazon executives and key lawmakers in hammering out final aspects of the plan.
The campaign for Amazon was a “model of regional cooperation” among political and business leaders, said Sen. Nikki Seltzer, D-West Columbia.
Amazon opened its distribution center off I-77 near Cayce in October, one of five new ones in the Southeast with another planned Upstate.
The tax break is expected to cost up to $2.5 million a year, but supporters say state and local coffers will net $11 million in payroll and property taxes.
Amazon has reached agreement with other retailers on a national plan for taxation of online sales that awaits congressional OK.
E-Mail
Print
Get The State newspaper delivered to your home. 
