Bing's bet on casino tax hike: Win for state, win for Detroit

**begingri** · April-24-11, 10:05 PM

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

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**professorscott** · April-24-11, 10:54 PM

Heck, you want a real windfall, figure out a way to tax "medical" marijuana. Everybody with back pain is getting a damned card. The state is something like four months behind in handling the requests.

**iheartthed** · April-25-11, 07:23 AM

Originally Posted by professorscott

Heck, you want a real windfall, figure out a way to tax "medical" marijuana. Everybody with back pain is getting a damned card. The state is something like four months behind in handling the requests.

Take the medical out of it and tax away.

**Danny** · April-25-11, 07:38 AM

YAY! roll that dice, King Bing. Detroit needs some lady luck of money!

**Hypestyles** · April-25-11, 11:57 AM

the casinos should be taxed 25%..

**coracle** · April-25-11, 06:04 PM

A loss for the punters. The Casinos will adjust their machines to pay out less to cover the increase in taxes [[or more). Taxes levied on any industry are paid not by the industry but their customers in higher prices.

**coracle** · April-26-11, 02:41 PM

Whereas "taxing the rich" is a popular policy used by the politicians to make us think they are penalizing the rich for being rich [[because they must be cheating - and they probably are). In fact it's the poor that eventually pays the taxes because the rich just increase the cost of their products and services to the consumer - "the poor". All tax increases eventually trickle down and are paid by the poor. The rich are the tax collectors and they don't even do that for free.