Amazon to get this tax benefit for poor as it builds a project in richest American county

Amazon.com Inc. walked away from billions of dollars of public subsidies when it announced Thursday it was abandoning plans for an office complex in New York. But it can still qualify for federal tax breaks intended to help distressed communities by building a new Virginia data center in America’s wealthiest county.

On a densely wooded field near Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County, about 30 miles west of Washington, the company and its development partners are preparing to build a facility for its rapidly growing Amazon Web Services cloud-storage business. AWS went into contract on the 107-acre property last year, after top Amazon executives held at least two meetings with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, who subsequently selected the area as a “qualified opportunity zone.” That designation will entitle Amazon and its partners to claim millions of dollars in federal tax breaks.