The Dark Store Tax Dodge of Big-Box Retailers

Welcome to the first episode of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's newest podcast series: Building Local Power. In our first episode, Director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, Christopher Mitchell, interviews Community-Scaled Economies initiative research associate, Olivia LaVecchia, on her recent work regarding big box chain stores' "Dark Store" strategy. "A lot of our systems are set up to privilege big box stores and these bigger companies," says Olivia LaVecchia. "There's this narrative out there that locally-owned businesses can't compete, when really that's not what's going on, they're competing pretty well considering they have to swim upstream a lot of the time." LaVecchia specifically cites the unfortunately common practice that big box stores often fight for, and win, judgments by state tax tribunals that cut their property taxes by around half. What's really devastating, she states, is that this lost property tax revenue comes directly out of local services such as infrastructure repairs, local libraries, and other public services.