Daniel Richardson

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) statutes structure a scam that proposes municipal infrastructure expenditure is an indirect carrot "incentive" for private property investment to create taxable valuation. Tax Increment from Captured Assessed Value is used to pay off bonded debt service. Note: Proximity to TIF infrastructure project, alone, will not cause sufficient private property investment to justify TIF expenditure. Public infrastructure investment is entirely sunk cost. There is no such thing as public profit from TIF. TIF bond expenditure may leave municipality to pay off debt with taxes from property outside of district, if no private investment in district, ergo, no Tax Increment. Any property valuation increase in TIF district is determined by local government which has vested interest in TIF political success. Without evidence, any Tax Increment developed in district is attributed to the municipal infrastructure expenditure, as if it could not otherwise happen. A TIF district property valuation is initialized as "original assessed value." Government TIF political success is guaranteed by municipality lowering revaluation prior to initialization. No MOU is required for district developers to progress for valuation increase; They can do valuable work which does not resemble taxable value (logging, excavation, foundation, etc) to avoid tax increase. Note: Background property valuation inflation happens universally, TIF or not.