Dotdash Meredith is giving up tax incentives that required the company to add workers in Des Moines.

In an Aug. 10 letter to the Iowa Economic Development Authority, senior vice president Jeffrey Spitzer wrote that the company wants to close a four-year-old contract with the state that was supposed to land the company $460,000 in tax credits and refunds.

The IEDA board awarded the incentives to Meredith Corp. in March 2018, three months after the Des Moines company's $2.8 billion acquisition of Time Inc. A company spokesperson at the time said Meredith wanted to expand some corporate jobs at its Iowa headquarters after executives phased out use of the old Time office in New York City.

To receive the incentives, Meredith was required to add 41 employees by March 2021, paying each of the new workers at least $29.12 an hour. The company was required to keep those employees on the payroll through March 2023.

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IEDA compliance team leader Paul Stueckradt wrote in a note to the authority's board that Meredith and its successor, Dotdash Meredith, never received the incentives. The company's letter to the IEDA does not specify why Dotdash Meredith wanted to close the contract, and a company spokesperson did not immediately return an email seeking comment Thursday evening.

The move comes eight months after New York-based digital publisher Dotdash bought Meredith for $2.7 billion, creating Dotdash Meredith. As recently as November, when Meredith executives asked the IEDA to reassign the contract as part of the pending acquisition, leaders at the old company still anticipated receiving the incentives.

"Des Moines' relatively low cost of living offers a meaningful economic advantage to media competitors operating in other locations, particularly on the East and West coasts of the U.S.," then-Meredith spokesperson Mike Lovell wrote in a letter to the IEDA in November, adding that the company employed about 870 workers in Des Moines at the time. "As a result, Meredith does not expect the Dotdash transaction to impact the overall number of employees at its Des Moines location."

In February, Dotdash Meredith announced it would cut print editions of six magazines and lay off about 200 employees across the country. In Des Moines, spokesperson Erica Jensen said at the time that the layoffs would impact about 3% of the company's local employees

The company has since given early retirement packages to some workers and laid off an undisclosed number of others, though Dotdash Meredith also has many posted positions.

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At the time that the IEDA awarded the incentives, Meredith executives said they would spend $20.6 million at the Des Moines office. About half of that would go toward software, while $5 million would go to building renovations and another $3 million would go toward furniture and fixtures.

The incentives came days after Meredith cut 1,200 jobs. Then-spokesperson Art Slusark said the company planned to expand consumer marketing, data analytics, accounting, finance and information technology jobs.

"The overwhelming majority will be local hiring," he said, pointing to the lower cost of living in Iowa compared to New York City.

Through the first half of this year, Dotdash Meredith has lost $83.7 million in operating earnings, something executives predicted at the time of the acquisition as they transitioned the company.

The company has added about $78.7 million into an employee pension plan in the United Kingdom this year. And, since December, the company has shelled out about $143.2 million in "change-in-control payments" to former Meredith executives.

Tyler Jett covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at tjett@registermedia.com, 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Dotdash Meredith dumps tax break that required hiring in Iowa