In 2022 we began researching and compiling just how much of our tax money has been funneled to the billionaire buddies of Mayor Duggan using tax captures and tax abatements under the auspices of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. The total since 2014 now comes to over a BILLION DOLLARS that they have looted from our public millages.
On August 12 of 2024 we held a press conference to unveil this information to the local media. Below is the data sheet of the report, showing the total amounts of public money tax captured, as well as the total amounts lost due to tax abatements. The tax capture data comes from our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation through FY2023. The tax abatement data is extrapolated from DPSCD loss reports, projected City-wide.
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Billion Dollar Report (jpg)
DownloadWe 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 2014-2022. We then compiled all of that data into the spreadsheet you see above. This information has never been available to the public until now.
On September 5, 2023, we submitted this data to each member of City Council, as well as members of the press, and explained it to them in detail. 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.
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 right to literacy. Meanwhile, newcomers often pay no taxes at all because of NEZs. The so-called Detroit “recovery” is being funded on the backs of the poor, for the benefit of those who have enough.
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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.
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Detroiters For Tax Justice
P.O. Box 34040, Detroit, MI 48234
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