Giant chain retailers have an unquenchable thirst for tax dollars. Companies like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s are constantly on the look out for tax rebates and corporate welfare from local communities. The latest case is from Arlington Heights, Illinois, where The Daily Herald newspaper reports that village officials have agreed to “give back” as much as $2.2 million in sales tax to the new Lowe’s home improvement store for the next decade. Under the tax welfare deal, the city gives Lowe’s one-third of the sales taxes the store generates over 10 years. The village board unanimously approved the plan Monday night. This welfare giveway did not pass unnoticed by smaller businesses that helped pay for it. One Ace Hardware dealer in Arlington Heights told village Trustees, “When you have a small business like ours, you don’t even think about coming before a village or city to ask for a tax break.” The owner of a small appliance repair business added, “The only places we’ll have to shop are places like Lowe’s and Home Depot,” he said. The money from the sales tax rebate is going to pay for some of the road improvements that were necessary to pave the way to the 162,000 s.f. Lowe’s. The welfare will pay for a new stoplight that serves the facility, and to help Lowe’s pay for asbestos removal from the former Kmart building that has to be torn down to make way for the Lowe’s. No one thought to ask the Kmart corporation to pay for removal of its dead store, so now taxes that would have come to the village will bail out Kmart’s hulk. Village officials answered the complaints of the small businesses in town who are having to subsidize their competition, by saying, “This is not something that our village does very often. This is one of those tough decisions we have to make.” Lowe’s officials actually told the village that they couldn’t proceed with the project without the sales tax incentive. This is the second largest home improvement chain in America, unable to fund one little project. Perhaps Lowe’s knows something about the term “village idiots” that everyone else in the community has missed.
The Lowe’s tax welfare deal ends after ten years — but how long after that will the Lowe’s store be around? And who will pay for the demolition of the Lowe’s store? You would have thought that Arlington Heights would have held Lowe’s to a developer’s agreement to tear down their store when they move out, but it looks like the village is heading towards the same pathetic conclusion they reached when Kmart disappeared. The idea that Lowe’s could not afford to put up the funds for a stoplight and asbestos removal stretches all credibility. Yet Lowe’s was able to nail it down in Arlington Heights, much to the chagrin of local merchants. The corporate welfare gravy train rolls on. For earlier stories on this subject, search Newsflash by “corporate welfare.”
