Ted Koppel Truth Quote1 688w320h

"Scholars often explain the rise of tax increment financing (TIF) as a natural progression toward localized revenue sources born of devolution, increased interlocal competition for business investment, and fiscal constraint. Although such factors provide important context, our genealogy of TIF in the state of Illinois reveals that critical actors—private real estate consultants—actively promoted the adoption and subsequent promotion of TIF as an economic development tool. Through interviews and a review of primary documents, we uncover a network of private consultants who had prior experience shepherding federal urban renewal dollars to cities and who later mobilized concerns around the 1970s deindustrialization crisis to steer the use of property tax incentives from job creation/retention to real estate development."

- from The Historical Roots of Tax Increment Financing, or How Real Estate Consultants Kept Urban Renewal Alive,

by Rachel Weber and Sara O'Neill-Kohl, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Unless spending is cut--and if a TIF really does generate economic growth, spending is likely to rise, as the local population grows--the burden of paying for these services will be shifted to other taxpayers. Adding insult to injury, those taxpayers include small businesses facing competition from well-connected chains that enjoy TIF-related tax breaks. In effect, a TIF subsidizes big businesses at the expense of less politically influential competitors and ordinary citizens."

Read More: A Crummy Way to Treat a Taxpayer, Daniel McGraw, Reason magazine

"Michigan Treasury officials have finally confirmed that the state, despite being required to do so by law, is not fully reimbursing school districts throughout the state from which economic development organizations siphon TIF funding."

- P.D. Lesko, The Ann Arbor Independent.  

 

The source article has vanished.  The link is dead.  It was 

http://www.a2indy.com/2014/07/02/treasury-officials-confirm-local-economic-development-entities-divert-public-school-funding/