Bing's bet on casino tax hike: Win for state, win for Detroit
By Nancy Kaffer
By the end of the month, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing will visit the state Legislature to pitch a tax increase: Raise the levy on Detroit's three casinos for one year to 24 percent from 18 percent, a 33 per-cent jump in the casinos' annual tax bill.
With a Republican-controlled Legislature, a business tax increase normally would be a tough sell.
But when the business is gambling -- and the state stands to gain -- a tax increase could pass, political watchers say.
"Republicans don't like to be tagged with the accusation or perception that they like to hike taxes on anything," said Bill Ballenger, editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics. "But if they were going to hike taxes on anything, casinos in Detroit would be target No. 1."
Still, it's unclear how such a proposal will fare -- and how exactly Detroit could benefit by pitching a tax boost for the state.
In an April 12 budget address to the Detroit City Council, Bing said he planned to ask the Legislature to raise the city's share of the wagering tax by less than 3 percent.
Administration officials later confirmed to Crain's that the increase to the city's portion would be less than 3 percentage points -- not 3 percent -- and that proposal would also seek to raise the taxes the casinos pay to the state.
Lansing political strategists speculate that the city's seeming largesse could be an attempt to regain some revenue-sharing dollars Gov. Rick Snyder plans to cut.
In the current fiscal year, Detroit received $178 million in statutory revenue-sharing dollars -- more than half of the $300 million in statutory revenue sharing distributed to cities across the state.
Continued at: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...in-for-detroit
[[For those who don't have subscriptions to Crain's, just Google the headline and click on the article from there.)
