Retail Won’t Deliver The Big Tax Dollars

To the Editor:

I am always amazed that each time someone talks about property tax relief, they look for retail businesses to help. As you pointed out in your editorial, retail businesses required “traffic.” (Clearly Newtown streets were not designed to accommodate heavy traffic.) Even so, next time you are in a retail store look around. How many fixed assets do you see? Most likely some computers and some shelving, but most of what you see is inventory. Inventory is not subject to property tax. My point is that retail merchants are OK, but they are not the best “bang for the buck” if you will, when it comes to getting some property tax relief.

Newtown needs businesses that have assets that can be taxed. One example would be a biotech company or a research facility. BioScience is one of the fastest growing fields, and it is flourishing in Connecticut. In fact, there is a shortage of laboratory space in Connecticut, based on a report issued by CURE, (www.curenet.org). Just to give you an example of the asset base I am talking about, one piece of equipment, a mass spectrometer, commonly used in scientific research, can cost about $600,000. Research companies use many pieces of equipment, and it is simply the nature of the business that they be “state of the art.”

The result is that even small biotechnology companies will spend millions on fixed assets each year. Now that is tax relief. Newtown has assets that could attract such businesses, particularly our proximity to a major university such as Yale. There is no question that bringing in small biotechnology or research company would be a bigger benefit in respect to tax relief than a Wal-Mart or a Target, or even another residential development. Check out the CURE website to see what we are missing!

Margaret Oliger

196 Brushy Hill Road, Newtown                                    April 4, 2004