Casino news from http://www.boston.com/
PROVIDENCE, R.I. --Partisan studies provided two very different pictures Monday of whether a proposed casino would lower property tax bills for average Rhode Islanders.
The studies come less than two months before voters decide whether to amend the state constitution so Las Vegas-based Harrah's Entertainment and the Narragansett Indian tribe can open a casino in West Warwick.
Harrah's has made reducing property tax bills the key pitch in its campaign, although critics have called the promise empty and a recent poll shows voters are suspicious.
The first study, funded by the Rhode Island Building & Construction Trades Council and conducted by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, shows the casino would generate more than $154 million for property tax relief by its sixth year of operation. The council supports the casino.
"Rhode Islanders want and deserve significant, long-term property tax relief, and the UMass study documents that the Narragansett Indian casino will provide it," Narragansett Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas said in a written statement.
But a conflicting report compiled by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, which opposes the casino, contends the state government would lose hundreds of millions of dollars as the casino steals business from two existing slot parlors in Newport and Lincoln. Little or no money would be left for property tax relief, the council says.
"When they talk about property tax relief, it's really a shell game," said Gary Sasse, executive director of the council, a nonprofit group that researches government issues.
Two significant problems makes these calculations difficult. First, the General Assembly has not set a tax rate for casino gambling proceeds. Also, while the amendment mandates that casino tax revenue be used for property tax relief, it doesn't spell out how that would happen. That could affect how taxpayers would be affected.
The analysis by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council assumes that state lawmakers will adopt a graduated tax rate of between 25 to 40 percent for casino revenue.
Under the group's analysis, the casino would cause a $1.1 billion decline in state revenues over a decade even as gambling activity in the state increased.
"For the last several years, Harrah's has bombarded Rhode Island with false propaganda about how much we have to gain financially from a casino," Republican Gov. Don Carcieri, a casino opponent, said in a statement. "This report puts those lies to rest once and for all. The only people who will gain from a Harrah's casino are Harrah's shareholders and Harrah's executives in Las Vegas."
Sasse said the casino would severely cut into the business of Lincoln Park and Newport Grand, two existing slot parlors that are taxed at about 60 percent.
A law passed last year also obligates the state to reimburse Newport and Lincoln for revenue losses caused by any casino. Those payments could cost the state $440 million through 2020, the report said.
But the union study predicts that gambling revenue from the casino will generally offset losses from the slot parlors, said Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at UMass-Dartmouth.
Barrow contends that Rhode Island's slot parlors would eventually rebound as they improve their facilities and benefit from rising population and income levels. In his study, the reimbursement payments would end two years after the casino opens, although casino opponents predict they will last longer.
He suggests that gambling proceeds could be distributed by extending the state's property tax relief credit to benefit all taxpayers, whether homeowners or renters.
Increasing state aid to municipalities would probably help lower property tax bills, but it might not benefit the 40 percent of Rhode Islanders who rent.
"There's no way to compel landlords to transfer that benefit to renters rather than keeping it for" themselves, Barrow said.
|
|
