From the Indianapolis Star:
A $2 million luxury suite expansion at Lucas Oil Stadium and other potential Capital Improvement Board projects helped spur state lawmakers to put a 10-year limit on two recent tax increases, a key sponsor says.
The tax sunsets — on increases to the Marion County event admissions and car rental taxes that benefit the CIB — were inserted into the two-year state budget bill passed in the closing hours of the General Assembly session, which ended early Saturday.
The move is evidence of some legislators’ long-standing frustration with the spending priorities of the CIB, which runs the city’s sports venues and convention center.
Given spending on such projects as the stadium suite expansion, said Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, “they didn’t need these tax increases.”
CIB officials call improvements to the stadium necessary to keep it in top-notch competitive shape. Detractors portray such decisions as welfare for wealthy team owners.
Young and some colleagues say their concern mostly lies in protecting the state’s investment in a 2009 bailout for the then-ailing CIB, which included two outstanding loans totaling $18 million.
The City-County Council OK’d the twin tax increases in January as part of that bailout package. The delayed tax options were available for enactment only in the first two months of this year.
In 2009, the CIB struggled with costs of operating the new stadium and unanticipated loan and insurance obligations.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and CIB leaders have said that while the CIB is in stronger financial shape now, the tax hikes were needed to secure the CIB’s bottom line for years to come.
The admissions tax — charged for events at CIB-run facilities — was increased to 10 percent from 6 percent, and the Marion County auto rental excise tax was increased to 6 percent from 4 percent. (That made the total sales taxes paid on car rentals in Marion County 17 percent.)
Those increases are expected to raise $6.7 million a year initially. All proceeds will go to the city’s police and fire budgets in the first year, but after that, the CIB will keep 75 percent.
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See the full article here:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013304290061
