Has your library issued refund checks due to a “dark store” ruling from the Michigan Tax Tribunal? PWPL must refund about $9,350 due to a Tribunal ruling on the Lowes store in Marquette Township, one of our contracted townships. The store opened in 2008, and continues to operate today. The assessment was reduced by 63%, going back three years. The library could be on the hook for tens of thousands in further refunds, along with decreased revenues going forward at the new assessed values, as more stores win appeals. Every millage-funded entity also has to issue refunds. Of course, it’s worse for the Township, because they are hit directly. The recent *Detroit Free Press* article “Big Box Stores Ringing up Property Tax Discounts” from April 11, 2015 gave a good summary of the situation. http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/11/big-box-stores-reduced-p... <http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/11/big-box-stores-reduced-property-assessments/25649545/> The Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear the case involving the local Lowes, and Home Depot in Breitung Township. Township officials were told it’s not a state-wide issue, though it certainly is one. The precedent for this interpretation of tax law actually started with a case in Novi, Michigan in 2010, involving the assessment of a Target store. You can search the Michigan Tax Tribunal docket at the link below for open cases in your area. http://taxdocketlookup.lara.state.mi.us/Search.aspx Settled cases will not appear in the results, nor will the massive backlog of cases that aren’t on the docket yet. Also, from my understanding, rather than spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, many municipalities are now settling with property owners without going to the Tribunal. These cases not only affect various types of local funding. The State, which is already facing a budget crisis, has to make up education dollars lost in these reassessments. This is a decrease in revenues, based on an interpretation of the Michigan Constitution, made by a small group of unelected people. They base their property reassessments on closed stores, hundreds of miles away, which could have deed restrictions on them that make them unusable to many potential buyers, and thus are not comparable facilities. The PWPL hosted an informational session about the dark store issue on April 9th 2015. The capacity crowd of around 150 included all the local media. One of the topics was legislation to close the dark store loophole. Legislation was introduced last year that would have closed the loophole, but it died in the House. It has been re-worked, constitutionally vetted, and should be reintroduced within the next month by our legislators; Representative John Kivela (D), and Senator Tom Casperson (R). I’m only scratching the surface of this issue. More info… http://www.uppermichiganssource.com/about/search.aspx?q=michigan+tax+tribuna... http://www.briancabell.com/dark-stores-lansing-hopes-wisconsin-bullies-and-s... http://thrunlaw.com/news/%E2%80%9Cbig-box%E2%80%9D-tax-appeals-have-big-impa... http://www.heraldpalladium.com/news/local/big-box-stores-win-big-tinier-tax-... Bruce A. MacDonald Assistant Director / Head of Circulation Peter White Public Library Marquette, Michigan