You pay more so they don’t have to

Emboldened by their victory in killing a modest reform of a tax break that only large developers and big companies receive, backers of government property lease excise taxes are seeking to expand their usage for just a few more at the top.

If you are a small business owner in Arizona or a homeowner, GPLETs affect you, too, because you’ll be picking up the tab for the revenues cities are losing by giving large corporations and developers huge property-tax breaks in the name of “economic development.”

House Bill 2803, authored by Rep. John Nelson, R-Glendale, would expand the use of GPLETS in military-use zones that have runways of 8,000 feet or longer, such as Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, and to areas within a three-mile radius of those runways.

This is great news for a few large corporations and developers, but terrible news for school districts such as Queen Creek, Mesa, Higley and Gilbert, which are in the crosshairs of Nelson’s bill.

A GPLET, pronounced around the state capitol just like “giblet” — the turkey innards — works like this: government entities lure private companies and developers to lands they own by offering them leases that abate property taxes. These companies and developers receive an eight-year abatement, followed by an in-lieu-of tax at a fraction of what property taxes are.

Nelson and others were quick to circle the wagons when state Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix and a small business owner, offered an idea to slowly wean people off of their current GPLETs over a 30-year period and to institute a new life term of up to 10 years for future ones. Cheuvront’s proposal was put to death by a bipartisan vote in the Ways and Means Committee of the Arizona House of Representatives.

Sensing the time right to step on the gas pedal, Nelson is now trying to speed up HB2803, which would offer GPLETS to a wider group of bigger players.

America Inc., Arizona Center, Arizona State University’s SkySong, Cabela’s sporting goods, CityScape, Collier Center, Hayden Ferry Lakeside, Jet condominiums, Phelps Dodge Tower, Tempe Marketplace and U.S. Airways, to name a few, are some of the major employers to have benefited, or continue to do so, from GPLETS.

Not eligible for GPLETs are your local dry cleaner, coffee house, gas station or any small business which, collectively, make up 99 percent of all businesses in Arizona. Year after year, small businesses beat the pants off of their bigger counterparts in generating jobs, yet get no break.

Legislators need to defeat HB2803 — and loudly. Playing favorites with the state’s tax code is both un-American and terribly bad economic policy.

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Michelle Bolton is Arizona state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.