Tax abatements for business add to cost of owning real estate

Though I'm still looking for more details, one thing is certain about tax abatements for businesses: they are responsible for higher property tax bills to home owners.

How abatements work, who awards them, who benefits from them, how much Newark City Schools loose because of them, and how much they add to property owners' tax bills isn't yet clear in my mind.

I think we're talking a big chunk of change and as an indicator of that here's one example:

The Gannett Co., with a revenue in 2007 of $7.4 billion, received in 2007 a $1.2-million mark-down on the taxable value of its real estate on First Street. That's the result of a 15-year tax abatement (1995-2010) for a building addition.

On its building, valued at $7.5 million, Gannett and the Thomson Corporation, the previous owner, held a 100 percent abatement from 1991-2006. Thomson Corp., by the way, had revenues of $7.3 billion in 2007.

Thousands of little Newark home-owner people did, in fact, subsidize the bottom line of these giant corporations, but it isn't the kind of thing your local newspaper would want to talk about, especially in view of the fact that there's scarcely ever been a new tax proposal in Newark that the Advocate didn't like.

Tax abatements and their births in Ohio law are perhaps the most unreported behind-the-scenes maneuvers of government. Either that, or I - and the rest of the reading public - aren't paying attention.

PROPERTY TAXATION AND SCHOOL FUNDING offers facts, though it's not easy reading. If you go there, notice on Page 5 that tangible property for business, before 2006, was taxed at 25 percent and by 2009 that rate will drop to zero. And guess who will pick up the slack for that?

That's part of the story about tax abatements. It's not complete without a having a grip, however loose it might be, on how tax abatements affect the property tax bills of homeowners. I'm working on that, and maybe the local news media might now take an interest.