Lawmakers To Debate: Should Maine’s Big-Box Stores Be Taxed As If They’re Empty Or Full?

Sarah Austin, an analyst for the left-leaning Maine Center for Economic Policy, says the tax reduction requests by Walmart and other large retailers have grown in recent years — $184 million since 2015, according to a limited statewide survey of municipalities.

Austin says that so far, local assessing boards have defended their tax evaluations of large retailers, but a successful legal challenge could change the dynamic, as it has in other states.

“And once that does happen, it’s much harder to put that genie back in the bottle,” she says.

Click here to read the full story, first published February 10, 2020, in Maine Public.