1/13 Hello, it's time for a sidebar tale to @amazon's HQ2 saga! Today @citylab published my months-long investigation into another side of the retail fallout, creative ways corps dodge taxes, and the handouts towns keep proffering: dark store theory. citylab.com/equity/2018/11…
2/12 Quick: What’s your local @Target worth? Whatever its property tax bill says, right? Well, In suburban communities around the U.S., cities and retailers actually can’t agree, and it could be a serious problem for local tax bases.
3/12 The issue is “dark store theory.” @walmart, @homedepot, @meijer & others argue that the oversupply of big-box retail -- think of all of those vacant plazas post-2008 -- makes their thriving stores worth way less (like 50% less) than cities say
4/12 So big-boxes are appealing for lower taxes year after year. There’s no disincentive for deep-pocketed corps to stop. But for cities, it’s incredibly costly. 100s of these appeals across Wisconsin could cost millions in annual tax revenue. 
5/12 The upper Midwest has been “dark store theory” ground zero. “They are holding the communities for ransom,” Wauwautosa, WI’s assessor told me. “It’s a bleeding out.” Small towns in Michigan have had to cut pensions & library hours as a result of the lost tax revenue.
6/12 But this weird loophole argument is spreading nationwide. In my survey of @IAAOHQ, assessors in 21 states reported confronting this issue, including OR, OH, IN, MN, & beyond. The Republican state comptroller of TX called it “corporate welfare of a particularly ugly kind.”
7/12 Reporting this story broke my brain. Property assessment is *complex,* harder to explain than the pro-big box argument. Some big box lawyers are zealously anti-tax. “We eat what we kill,” one tax rep said. “We kill because they need to be killed.”
8/12 The harm is clear, but law isn’t. High courts are split. Lobbyists are powerful in statehouses. That could change in WI, where 76% of voters in 24 towns passed referenda this year asking reps to close the loophole. But the path to resolution isn’t clear.
9/12 Why care? 1) Your town could lose $, which means you pay more taxes or lose public services. 2) Dark store theory is part of a trend. Big companies are resourced and motivated to find tax workarounds of all kinds. Local gov is often under-equipped to stop them...
11/12 Oh, and while big box stores have paved the way, expect similarly incessant tax appeals from all sectors and from very rich companies. Ah, yes: @apple has filed hundreds of appeals in Santa Clara County, California, going back to 2004.
12/12 So plz throw a click for dark store theory, or what @dcdudley, hero editor, called the Fourth Horseman of the Retail Apocalypse. @dhmontgomery built a beautiful map, @madjomcveigh came thru w/ great graphics, & @nflatow helped steer this insanity.
Make that @dccdudley. He rules.
