A growing big-box chain finds an opportunity and moves into a marginal area because it is offered Tax Increment Financing or other concessions. Local taxes are relatively high for big-box buildings, but the TIF and low local labor costs seal the deal. The store operates a few years and makes a profit. It manages to kill off small local competition, but that is not enough.

Expansion holds the key, but the TIF or other incentives have expired. Solution: Apply for a new TIF for a new, larger building. Build it and they will come! Abandon the older big-box and put it on the market. The market for vacant big-boxes becomes depressed, while the housing market booms.

Enter revaluation. House costs are up, big boxes are down. Big boxes get a tax reduction, and home owners pick up the slack, even in the face of depressed local wages and now missing local stores. Meanwhile, the big-box enjoys riding out the TIF a while longer. It is a kind of double dip.

Does shifting the local tax burden from big boxes to homeowners appear fair?

What will big-boxes do when the new TIF runs out, and much of our limited real local wealth has been extracted to foreign places? (This does not play the same for manufacturing businesses, they already exited stage left!) Is there a pattern here?

Elbert Derick, Wales