Big box owners are wrong

Big box store owners contesting their property assessments, which include the thriving business as a component of value, are wrong in asserting that business activity should be irrelevant to property value.

These retailers are using gimmick lawsuits in attempts to transfer their tax burden to the little guy — especially your everyday residential homeowner who will take the hit, and what a hit it will be if courts cave to Menards, Home Depot, etc., (“Retailers seeking tax cuts with ‘dark stores,’ ” Jan. 15).

But these store owners should not have it both ways, which is what will happen if they win court actions to lower their assessments to comparable values of empty store buildings or “dark stores.” Here’s why. Any business has the right to insert into a sale contract a “do not compete” clause. That clause essentially recognizes the value of doing business tied to a location and limits opportunities for a time for any new business owner to thrive in specific ways.

These big box guys are saying that their business activity should not count for assessment value, but they sure want to hold onto and assert the same value as a hedge against future owners competing with them from a site they formerly owned.

That’s not right for a couple of reasons. With “do not compete” clauses, businesses retain a monetary interest in the site even after a property sale, and that interest in itself typically lowers the ongoing assessed value of property, lessening tax collection for the taxing authority and shifting tax burdens to everyone else.

So that they do not get away with it, we need courts and legislatures to respond justly and timely in preventing the gross unfairness embedded in these big box strategies for shifting their rightful tax burdens to others.

Dawn Crowley Wauwatosa