Combined tax capture and tax abatement totals, 2014-2023
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The injustice of 'reverse robin hood'
We wanted to know how much of our tax money is being stolen from our schools, libraries, and other millage-funded public institutions to fund private downtown extravagance. Using FOIA requests, we retrieved reports from the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) on how much money they have taken from each millage on our tax bill, for the years since FY2014. We then compiled all of that data into the spreadsheet you see above. This information has never been publicly compiled or available until now.
The four tax capturing authorities of the DEGC are listed on the lefthand margin. The millages that we pay on our tax bill are listed across the top margin. Totals are listed across the bottom margin, and grand totals are on the lower right.
The total amount stolen from all millages by the DEGC's tax captures since 2014 is now over $516M...that's half a billion dollars. The total amount withheld from all millages by corporate tax abatements since 2017 is also over $500M. We are still trying to get answers on what this billion was spent on (who it went to), specifically.
We present this data to show why, in the midst of all the trumpeted prosperity of the “New Detroit,” that our public schools and libraries continue to struggle, and why our taxes are so high for such lean services. Working class Detroiters pay some of the highest taxes in the region, despite also continuing to have the highest poverty rate in the nation.
Watching this much money being siphoned from the public institutions that foster the education of our citizens feels like a denial of our children's right to literacy. Meanwhile, newcomers often pay no taxes at all because of NEZ tax abatements. The so-called Detroit “recovery” is being financed on the backs of the poor, for the benefit of those who have enough.
Now that our media and public officials have been informed of this injustice, they can no longer stand idly by or claim ignorance of it. Now that they know, they can only be participants in rectifying it, or silently complicit in continuing it.
Detroit's corporate welfare system
This infographic illustrates the quasi-governmental structure that conducts this massive wealth transfer. The tax abatement apparatus is outlined in the left column, while the tax capture apparatus is outlined in the right column.