Commercial Property Tax Loophole
Now that restaurants and bars are reopening, so will one of our favorite pastimes. No, not professional sports. I’m talking about complaining about potholes, congestion, and the other acts of simple maintenance our city routinely falls short on. Since Austin is unwilling cease donor brown-nosing and close a 20-year property tax loophole that almost exclusively…
Read MoreBeginning in 2014, Central Market parent HEB began snapping up parcels on the city block bounded by Lemmon and Bowser Avenues between Reagan and Throckmorton Streets. Their intent was to open a Central Market. That plan has been abandoned for what I last heard was a Central Market planned for the old Albertson’s location on…
Read MoreThe next time you walk into Lowe’s and they ask if they can help you, you might say, “Yeah, pay your fair share.” Big-box retailers are trying a new-fangled strategy to lower their property taxes, and in some states, it is working. It’s called the “dark-store” strategy, borrowing a commercial real estate term that means…
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