Re:Big-box retailers are slashing their property taxes throu...
by shkkmo on Wednesday November 14, 2018 @07:06PM
(#18455564)
The value of the property can be assessed using a number of means: comparable sales, cost or income. In wisconsen, comparable sales is supposed to be the first (but not the only) criteria applied.
So, no, it is not obvious that the success of the business that uses the property is an invalid means of assessing value.
The loophole is not so much the use of comparable sales, as the imbalance of legal resource between these large corporations and the small municipalities:
"Yet dark store theory appeals have been incessant, and small towns feel outgunned. Retailers come back, year after year, insisting on paying less, even after they’ve been granted reductions. For them, every demand brings the opportunity for a lower valuation, and there’s no real financial downside, with outside tax lawyers working for contingency fees. “They’re forcing the hands of municipalities to go to court, and then they keep bargaining it down,” said Krause, the assessor in Wauwatosa. Repeat appeals from Lowe’s, Best Buy, Meijer, and others dating back to 2013 have cost her city $2.4 million in legal fees."
So, no, it is not obvious that the success of the business that uses the property is an invalid means of assessing value.
The loophole is not so much the use of comparable sales, as the imbalance of legal resource between these large corporations and the small municipalities:
"Yet dark store theory appeals have been incessant, and small towns feel outgunned. Retailers come back, year after year, insisting on paying less, even after they’ve been granted reductions. For them, every demand brings the opportunity for a lower valuation, and there’s no real financial downside, with outside tax lawyers working for contingency fees. “They’re forcing the hands of municipalities to go to court, and then they keep bargaining it down,” said Krause, the assessor in Wauwatosa. Repeat appeals from Lowe’s, Best Buy, Meijer, and others dating back to 2013 have cost her city $2.4 million in legal fees."