Casinos are after property value cuts

The Assessor's office has filed appeals on behalf of the Harrah Reno and five other hotel-casinos in Washoe County to curtail their property values for the approaching tax year. The office backed up only the Harrah casino but the others, Eldorado Hotel Casino, the Silver Club, the Siena Hotel Spa Casino and the Club Cal Neva are desperately seeking the way out as well. Mark Stafford, a senior appraiser together with the assessor's office proposed $118 million to be lowered to $105 million value. It seems that since the recession induced by the terrorist attack in 2001, over $300 million in taxable values have been revoked. In the case businesses are not reaching the normal standards, Nevada statute allows them to look for breaks. The recent years Nugget in Sparks, Circus Circus Reno, Sands Regency Casino & Hotel, Siena Hotel Spa Casino, Silver Legacy Resort Casino and the Reno Hilton have received substantial reductions. The act of writing off the reduction stands for considering at least part of this business as obsolete. Each year the businesses are reevaluated to measure whether their incomes have picked up. An appeal was made on the taxable value of $8.1 million by Gannett Co. Inc., which publishes the Reno Gazette-Journal, on the grounds that it is now worth $5 million based on comparable sales. According to Stafford, the taxable values for downtown Reno in the fiscal year are not expected to be altered radically from this year and the new supplement of Palladio condominiums could be thwarted by appeals won by casinos.

Source: Online Casinos News Staff

Sunday, 23 January 2005