Coast casinos protesting local property tax levies

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000 | 8:55 a.m.

County supervisors say they may review the tax assessments one time before final adoption on Sept. 18. They have told casinos officials not to expect changes.

The economic boon brought to the coast by the gaming industry also resulted in skyrocketing real estate values, supervisors say. The property tax assessments reflect those higher values.

Casino officials said Harrison County has overvalued their hotels, land and land-based buildings for tax purposes by $358.6 million.

"I'm not going to commit to litigation," said Bruce Nourse, a Beau Rivage spokesman. "That certainly is one of the options we have available to us. Our primary concern at this point is to negotiate with the county to reach a fair settlement to this appraised value issue."

The casinos are technically on floating barges and considered personal property. The tax assessments affect only buildings on dry land and the land itself.

County supervisors said any reduction would be unfair to other county taxpayers who are facing higher tax bills on their homes and businesses primarily because a casino-driven real-estate boom has driven up property values.

"We do want to be fair," said Board of Supervisors president Bobby Eleuterius. "But as an elected official, I can't tell people, 'Yours is going up, but we are going to give a big cut to casinos."'

The county recently completed state-mandated reappraisals of property values for the first time since 1986. Although the county and cities are cutting tax rates this year, most home and business owners will see higher tax bills because of reappraisals.

The $358.6 million in contested casino property value would represent about $5 million in tax revenue for the county, cities and schools.

Nourse said the county made a mistake by using the replacement value of the hotels, instead of basing the appraisals on income. In Beau Rivage's case, the casino believes its value should be $252 million, instead of the $439 million county figure.

"Our difference of opinion is in the methodology," Nourse said.

Supervisor Larry Benefield said the county's method is fair.

"The question is, would they sell that hotel for that?" Benefield said. "If they want to use income, are they counting the comps (complimentary rooms) and other things they give away? Are they being treated the same as the mom-and-pop hotel operations? How could you separate all the rooms given as comps and be fair with the hotels that have to figure all that as profit? If (casinos) break even on hotel operations, I think they're happy."