Quote Originally Posted by O3H View Post
No one addressed the Elephant in the Room

https://taxfoundation.org/publicatio...climate-index/

The city ""had"" the second-highest home and industrial property taxes
in the nation; while commercial property was taxed the highest
of the nation’s 50 largest cities.

But I'm sure everyone gets a Tax Break, for 20 years or more.....right ?
Oh snap, that's only for Gilbert, Ilitch, Amazon, Whole Foods, etc....


  1. Taxes matter to business. Business taxes affect business decisions, job creation and retention, plant location, competitiveness, the transparency of the tax system, and the long-term health of a state’s economy.
  2. Most importantly, taxes diminish profits. If taxes take a larger portion of profits, that cost is passed along.
  3. Thus, a state with lower tax costs will be more attractive to business investment and more likely to experience economic growth.


2018 USA State Business Tax Climate Index Rankings

_____Michigan________
12th - in overall rankings nationwide
8th - in corporate tax rank
14th - for individual income tax rank
11th - for sales tax rank
48th - for the unemployment tax rank ******
21st - in property tax rank [[basically middle of the pack)

Detroit runs on taxes ......or are all the philanthropists propping up the city

Did everyone forget this story in the FreePress : ?
https://www.freep.com/story/money/bu...ate/520186002/

THINK about the ordinary guy/girl who has ""some money"" and wants to give a business a go in the city. What are they up against, and is it really ""the-wonderful-place"" to pull the trigger ? Move downtown live a few miles away from your business ??
Oakland/Macomb range all the way up to an hours drive north of Detroit
https://www.maptechnica.com/county-map/Macomb/MI/26099
I think you overstate the importance of taxes in general, but whether you do or not, none of this is new, and Detroit has been improving quite a bit despite the tax issue, so the "dying" thing just seems wrong--you are pointing out a problem that is real, but seems very clearly not to be killing the city. Also, abatements are much more widespread than you indicate--there are NEZ abatements all over the place.

Now, if you want to say something like "Detroit's very high property tax rates are likely to slow the rise in Detroit real estate values, and already make it less attractive for people and businesses to move into the city without tax abatements, which are temporary and will eventually give people serious problems when they expire.", you aren't going to get any disagreement from me. Also there are a lot of properties with assessments are frozen under Headlee whose taxes are going to go up a whole lot when they get sold, as Detroit is not actually dying and property values in many parts of the city have risen quite a lot. But problems and death are rather different things.