Schools or Corporate Tax Breaks? Crain’s Reports on Battle in Lansing
Crain’s Detroit Business Senior Editor Chad Livengood joins Detroit Today to talk about how schools pay the price for corporate tax incentives.
There’s an ongoing conversation in Michigan about how we struggle to fund all our different priorities here in Michigan, and whether more taxes are a potential solve for that problem. The lack of revenue growth in the state forces vital programs to fight over finite resources that never seem to be enough.
Meanwhile, many lawmakers continue to indulge tax breaks — a huge $1.8 billion corporate tax break in 2011, and ever more giveaways to companies looking to move to Michigan.
That refusal to ask businesses to sacrifice alongside vital government priorities has sparked a fierce battle between the corporate world and one of the state’s biggest investments: schools.
The latest battle between corporations receiving large tax incentives and school groups is happening now at the state Capitol.
Crain’s Detroit Business Senior Editor Chad Livengood writes this week, “Four years after winning the Legislature’s approval to make tax-free capital investments in Michigan, Las Vegas-based data center giant Switch Inc. is back at the state Capitol asking lawmakers for a retroactive property tax break for its Grand Rapids-area server farm.”
He says school groups are fighting like hell against the measure.
“The schools in Kent County would lose about $372,000 a year,” says Livengood on Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson.
“That’s what happens when you create these renaissance zones, or these types of, sort of, tax-free zones, is you just push the money and the costs off onto somebody else,” he continues.
