NEW: Help for Small Businesses Struggling with Abatements
Thursday, May 31, 2012
“We’ve seen 500-600% in two cases. One business went from paying $2 million to $19 million. There are thirty percent of businesses had increases of 15% or higher, and that’s a lot of money, especially for the small businesses,” said the Chamber’s Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy, Stuart Loosemore. “Our guess is that the larger ones already have experience with this, but this is open to all businesses.”
On June 7th from 7:30 – 9:00 a.m., business owners are welcome to come to the Chamber Conference Room, 446 Main St., Suite 200 for one-on-one consultations to help them with the process.
“We’re figuring even with the decreased tax rate, there will still be some small businesses taking some serious bills. The abatement process is really the only process to file for a change and many of them have never had to go through it,” Loosemore said.
Business owners should bring current leases and appraisals that were performed between late 2009 (e.g. October) and March 2011, other pertinent information that might have gone unnoticed during the outside visits performed during the revaluation process, and commercial or industrial tax bill.
“We’ll help them figure out the timeline for filing, what goes along with the abatement, payment of the tax... We’re going to give them as much of that info as possible,” he said. “The city sent out a two-sided sheet with the bills. We’re looking to supplement that and do one-on-one consultations.”
The Chamber is hoping to continue to strengthen local businesses through this meeting. “It’s our mission to look after the business community,” Loosemore said. “We believe it’s the logical next step to fight for the business community.”
Present and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, Dick Kennedy says that the process will be unfamiliar territory to many businesses. “I think anyone who hasn’t been through the process before will need some support,” he said. “We want to give them as much advice as we can in regards to how they can file and info they need to bring with them to support their claim to get a lower valuation.”
One-on-one support will be available at the meeting.
“We’re hoping to get a small handful of attorneys in the city on site for one-on-one help. We’re hoping to answer questions to give owners that show up the most info possible to file a solid abatement,” Loosemore said.
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