Tesla: $37 million in Nevada tax credits, $114 million in abatements

CARSON CITY — Tesla qualified for a total of $36.85 million in transferable tax credits and $115 million in tax abatements during Fiscal Year 2017.

According to the annual report produced by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, all of those credits were purchased by Nevada resorts and taken against the Gaming license fees they would otherwise have had to pay the state.

The transferable credits were a key to the deal that brought Tesla/Panasonic’s battery gigafactory to the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.

Tesla qualified for tax abatements totaling $114.99 million. Most of that came in sales tax abatements totaling $107.86 million. The rest consisted of $1.39 million in reductions to the Modified Business Tax, $5.59 million from the real property tax and $156,993 on the personal property tax.

Tesla keeps those tax breaks and tax credits as long as the company continues to meet annual goals that will bring its minimum investment over 10 years to $3.5 billion.

The report states Tesla had already invested a total of $2.6 billion as of the end of Fiscal 2017. Therefore, it concludes, the company is making “satisfactory progress” toward that goal.

The annual report signed by GOED Director Steve Hill also states the “gigafactory” project employed 5,947 construction workers who are Nevada residents and now employs 1,335 Nevadans as employees in the factory — 896 working for Tesla Motors and 439 working for Panasonic Electronics.

In addition, Storey County officials report Tesla paid annual permitting and plan review fees totaling $620,315 during the fiscal year. Without the county abatements, those fees would have totaled $6.45 million.

Tesla also paid $17,132 in permit and plan fees for work outside the Tesla site.

That report also states Tesla and Panasonic are paying an average wage of $45 an hour.

The annual reports filed with the Legislative Commission on Dec. 19 also state the now defunct Faraday Future project that was to create a car factory in Southern Nevada didn’t receive abatement money.

The company originally committed $170 million to jump start its factory at the North Las Vegas Apex site. But the $221,603 in abatements the company qualified for were put into a trust until the funding actually materialized. It didn’t and Faraday Future announced in August it had decided to take its auto plant to an existing facility in California.

So the company never received the abatements.