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You are here: Home / Local / Friends of Harford: A Brief Overview of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) – a Primer and a Caution

Friends of Harford: A Brief Overview of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) – a Primer and a Caution

June 14, 2015 By Dagger News Service 2 Comments

From Friends of Harford:

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is public financing to support private projects desirable to Harford that cannot attract developers without government support. TIFs should be used to offset a developer’s added costs to renovate or redevelop, since this saves taxpayers’ money in the long run by preserving property values in the area.

When government expects its public to significantly benefit from a TIF project, it can agree to finance a bond for the developer; it pays for the developer’s bond by forgoing up to 30 years of increased property tax revenue from his project. Property taxes from the development pay the TIF bondholders instead of paying for County schools, roads, police, etc. Thus a TIF saves money for the developer (and those who buy his properties) by increasing the burden on other Harford taxpayers.

A TIF has been granted twice here in Harford County: once for a housing development at Beechtree Estates and once for the James Run Mixed Office project. In both cases, the TIF was given to build on undeveloped land. Friends of Harford objects, believing TIFs are for redevelopment and should not be used to give an unfair advantage to one developer over those who pay these costs out of their own pockets. We fail to see how either of these projects offer enough benefit to the public to justify the amount of property tax being given up.

We are writing this article in anticipation that the TIF issue will arise again for the James Run LLC or a new project, to alert businesses to the unfair competition and to inform taxpayers of the adverse impacts.

READ MORE ABOUT TIF in our new article.

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Comments

  1. Mr. Moderate says

    June 16, 2015 at 1:05 am

    Thanks, as always, to the Friends of Harford for educating us to TIF financing, especially as it has been applied locally. I especially appreciate that they present information in a straightforward, objective manner, and only at the end announce and explain their position on an issue.

    Sadly, politics, regardless of party, is far too political. I was always concerned about the Craig administration, but the new administration really scares me. The rapid announcement by the Glassman people that the Master Plan was to be “upgraded” or “Reviewed” (or whatever euphemism the Executive used) really “set off fire bells in the night.”

    It seems,that Mr. Glassman believes that Harford County belongs to him and his cronies. His dictate changing the colors of the County Seal really ticks me off. I’m afraid next he’ll declare, on the new revamped County Website (which genuinely does need a major re-design) that a Sheep is to be the official county Mascot. At least Glassman can rightly claim he grew up in the County, as opposed to the Council President who got caught in that lie about his background during the last election..

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  2. Elsie says

    June 16, 2015 at 9:56 am

    Good information and important to know about especially when it comes down to how much Harford County spends to support developers.

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