....and one public subsidy won't break the bank. But it's silly to debate the pros and cons of a single indulgence while ignoring the 400 that preceded it.
Here is the well-established pattern of the "sweet deals" that preceded any new Stadium subsidy: City agrees to sell municipal bonds to raise cash for "the lucky recipient". Taxpayers guarantee repayment of the bonds (debt). Note: In real life, if someone co-signed a large debt, the beneficiary would have to pay through the nose for the accommodation. Rich folks (and corporations) wishing to avoid payment of Federal and State taxes buy the bonds. No risk, no taxes. "Lucky recipient" builds project and pays him/herself several million dollars in upfront and ongoing "fees". MCDA (and the bond brokers) also receive several million dollars in upfront and ongoing bond related "fees". OOPS! "Lucky recipient" can't get the public to fork over enough money to sustain the project and make the debt payments. Of course an audit of "Lucky recipient's" books would show piles of money being drained from the project by paying related corporations for "services". This is a well-known strategy for avoiding and/or reducing payment of Federal and State taxes. For example: One of the related corporations might hold a board meeting in Hawaii. Who is on the board? Often times, it's "Lucky recipient's" wife, children, friends. You see, if corporations can spend the money they receive each year, they pay NO taxes. Even if a corporation shows a $50,000 profit, the tax rate is only 15%. In other words, it is very easy for "Lucky recipient" to set up several related corporations to receive and spend the project's money. These corporations are protected by privacy laws which makes it nearly impossible to scrutinize without a Court Order. By the way, the non-profits employ this same strategy: They surround themselves with for-profit corporations and efficiently, discreetly move money into them. At the end of the year, the non-profit (or the project) looks broke! Real estate developers have perfected this strategy (i.e. Donald Trump). "Lucky recipient" goes back to the money source and says "I'm broke and I need more money. If you don't give me more money - I'll just walk away from the project - it will go belly up and you'll look like fools." This is happening right now with City Center/Brookfield Development. Brookfield is willing to prepay $30 million in loans IF the City WRITES OFF the other $30 some million that it owes, PLUS give Brookfield a fresh $20 million! By the way, Brookfield Development is listed as a CASH GUSHER among publicly traded companies by Investors Business Daily. The City doesn't have much choice but to cave into "Lucky recipient's" demands. If the City lets the bonds go into default, the entire City would be severely punished by a reduced credit rating and much higher interest rates on ALL of the City debt. It would also have a highly publicized failure, plummeting property values, and greatly diminished property tax receipts. A couple of weeks ago, this scenario reared its ugly head on the Target Center deal. It's also happening on the Mall of America deal and many others that aren't well known. So....the City opts to hide the failures by handing more money to "Lucky recipient" thus increasing the public debt. In order to increase the public debt, the City must ALSO increase the "taxable market value" of ALL real estate to keep the credit rating agencies happy (Standard & Poors, Moody's, etc.) "Taxable Market Value" is not meaningful though (except psychologically) - because we have 50 "classification" rates that alter those values to produce "tax capacity". In Minneapolis, the "tax capacity" has actually dropped in the past ten years - even though our debts have grown. And now comes the recession.....Oh oh......look out below! There are ways to effectively deal with these problems, but I'll save those for another post. In the meantime, anyone begging and whining for more public debt for a stadium SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Get your own money - if it's such a good deal, every bank in town will line up to finance it! Victoria Heller Born in Elliot Park, 1949 Minneapolis resident until 1990 St. Paul resident since then Continuing Minneapolis property owner - Ward 2 President and CEO of Programmed Management Corporation (accounting software for investment real estate) President of Cedar-Riverside Associates, Inc. General Partner, Cedar-Riverside Properties Crusader for the true American Heroes (small business people and individual taxpayers) Voice: 651 490 0904 Fax: 651 484-7137 [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
