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Lowe's lawsuits could start chain reaction; loss of state revenue 'unconscionable'
Rickey StokesViewed: 7199
Posted by: RStokes
Date: Sep 22 2016 7:46 AM
Lowe's is a home-improvement center behemoth with more than 1,800 stores registering $59.1 billion in annual retail sales in 2015, a nearly 18-percent leap in five years.
But the North Carolina-based chain, in a sweeping effort throughout the U.S., including Alabama, to slash its taxes, wants courts to re-evaluate the market value of its stores, basically assigning them the same value as an empty building.
In Alabama, Lowe's attorneys have filed lawsuits seeking value reductions for 27 home centers. The lawsuits include stores in smaller cities such as Muscle Shoals and Hartselle and those in metropolitan cities such as Birmingham and Mobile.
The state's revenue department and others are ringing alarm bells. They say that if Lowe's prevails, other retail chains will pursue the same course, potentially crippling revenues needed for police and fire services, roads, sewers, teacher salaries and other basic government services.
"The loss of money would just be astronomical," said Sonny Brasfield, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.
Brasfield said the state could lose roughly $1.5 million annually in revenues based on the number of Lowe's challenging their assessments.
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