From: "Victoria Heller" > I would like to know which Minneapolis businesses loot the public treasury > and which ones do not.
The real truth about how businesses have been successful tax-wise is not the fact that occasionally some companies have recieved TIF money or other subsidies. The real truth is that over the last 10 years or so, there has been a substantial shift of tax burden off businesses, rental property, and wealthy people and onto the average income citizen through the normal regular tax systems. This has been done through many different revisions to the tax code from a number of different means but has been a trend not just for the most recent legislative sessions but over at least the last ten years. Although this is a part of a much longer trend, the Pioneer Press had a good article about how the most recent tax changes and how property taxes on rental property are going down and businesses staying flat while taxes on median citizens are going up. The vaunted tax reductions are not primarily benefitting average citizens. http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/3285903.htm When I first started looking at finance issues, over 15 years ago, businesses with properties over $100,000 kicked in 5% of that value into the property tax base. Now, that rate is below 3%. Residential properties kicked in 1% if they were below something like $70,000, 2% if they were something like between $70,000 and $140,000, and 3% for values over $140,000. Now residential properties have two break points, the bottom rung still kicking in 1% but the top rung has been eliminated and what had been the middle rung kicking in 1.65%. I think if you want to boycott businesses that have been receiving tax breaks, you would have to boycott all businesses in the state. And anyone wealthy. Carol Becker Longfellow _______________________________________ 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
