Foxconn Mount Pleasant’s largest taxpayer with payment

Foxconn Technology Group paid the village of Mount Pleasant $8.4 million in property taxes and special assessments in 2019, local officials announced Monday.

Foxconn‘s 2019 property taxes totaled $1,071,899.55, making it the largest taxpayer in the village. The company said the village has chartered it 850 acres of land to date.

As for special assessments, the company’s first payment was $7,325,050. Special assessments are meant to pay for all land acquisitions in the project area and come in addition to the $60 million Foxconn paid Mount Pleasant in 2017.

Mount Pleasant will be the site of a 1 million-square-foot Generation 6 Foxconn plant, which will make small, thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display screens for cellphones and other devices. The company originally promised a larger, $10 billion display-screen manufacturing campus and plant when it signed its project agreement with the state in 2017. The company had planned to create up to 13,000 jobs with an estimated average salary of nearly $54,000.

The change has prompted discussions over whether the manufacturer should receive $3 billion in state tax credits. Earlier this month, Gov. Tony Evers said Foxconn could still qualify for credits if it made changes to the contract to reflect the work it’s actually doing.

Despite the contract discussions, construction is ongoing at the Mount Pleasant site. Foxconn awarded $51 million in contracts to 21 companies in December alone, bringing the total value of work at the site to about $350 million. Crews are nearing the completion of roof construction at the plant, and the company plans to have the factory running by the end of 2020.