City mayor and manager testify about tax policy in Lansing

Three Rivers Mayor Tom Lowry and city manager Joe Bippus joined state Rep. Aaron Miller in Lansing last week to testify about tax fairness before the House Committee on Tax Policy.
Lowry and Bippus said big stores should be subject to common-sense property tax rates so that municipal governments don’t have to cut their budgets to adjust to the lower tax rates assessed on so-called big-box stores.
Miller said the trend by several big-box retailers is to appeal to the Michigan Tax Tribunal to severely lower their property taxable value, which in turn reduces their property tax burden to cities and townships. Miller said Michigan communities are too-frequently losing these legal battles with large retail stores.
The committee is taking testimony on the issue with the possibility of reforming the policy.