After contesting the tax bills for a few of its stores in Maine, Walmart has lost two appeals to the state and settled with Ellsworth and Falmouth.
The company settled with the two municipalities following a written decision by the state Board of Property Tax Review issued in December siding with the city of Brewer.
The board determined that state law barred the retailer from contesting its tax bill. That same month, the board ruled against Walmart in a tax dispute over its tax bill in Thomaston.
After contesting the tax bills for a few of its stores in Maine, Walmart has lost two appeals to the state and settled with Ellsworth and Falmouth.
The company settled with the two municipalities following a written decision by the state Board of Property Tax Review issued in December siding with the city of Brewer. The board determined that state law barred the retailer from contesting its tax bill. That same month, the board ruled against Walmart in a tax dispute over its tax bill in Thomaston.
This isn’t the first time Walmart has settled property tax disputes. It also did so in Bangor and Scarborough in 2019 and Brunswick in 2021, according to decisions posted on the state board’s website.
In many of its tax appeals, in Maine and elsewhere, Walmart has argued that appraisals of its stores should be based on the value of the buildings insteads of on what type of economic activity takes place inside — a controversial concept often referred to as a “dark store” theory in which the store is assessed as if it is closed down and completely empty.
But Valerie Moon, Brewer’s city assessor, took another approach. She said she successfully argued to the board that an obscure state law prevents any landowner from appealing a tax assessment if the owner refuses to provide relevant information to the local tax assessor.
Moon asked Walmart for several pieces of information about its Brewer store when it contested its tax bills from 2020 and 2021, she said. Items she requested included the store’s floor plan, its sales figures, property appraisals of Walmart’s other Maine stores, and more. State law allows her to ask for information that property owners might consider confidential and prevents her from publicly releasing such information, Moon said.
“They did not provide that information,” Moon said. “They argued it was not relevant and that I was overreaching.”
But the board determined that most of what Moon had asked for was relevant and, citing the state law, decided that Walmart’s refusal to provide the information barred the company from pursuing the appeals.
“A taxpayer is barred from appealing an abatement decision if the taxpayer refuses or neglects to answer the assessor’s inquiries,” the board wrote in its decision, quoting the law.
As a result, the city’s $15 million 2020 assessment for the Brewer store was upheld, as was its $15.25 million assessment for 2021. Walmart had argued the assessments for those years should have been $11 million and $13 million respectively, which would have saved the company a total of $140,000 in tax payments over those two years, Moon said.
“In my opinion, it’s a great outcome for the citizens of Brewer,” Moon said, adding that the reduced assessment likely would have reduced Walmart’s local tax bill for at least the next few years.
“That would have been a significant loss,” she said.
Bruce Stavitsky, a New Jersey property tax lawyer who has been representing Walmart in its tax appeals in Maine, declined to comment when reached at his office Thursday afternoon. Stavitsky directed inquiries on the tax appeals to Walmart’s public affairs office, but a spokesperson for the company did not respond Thursday to an emailed request for comment.
Larry Gardner, Ellsworth’s city assessor, credited Brewer’s success with getting Walmart to settle its tax dispute with Ellsworth. Ellsworth had appraised the local Supercenter at $20 million, but Walmart argued the assessment should be roughly half that amount, which would have reduced its annual local tax bill from approximately $360,000 to $180,000.
Instead, Walmart agreed last month to an assessment of $19.5 million, reducing its tax bill by about $25,000.
“I think this is a very good value,” Gardner said of the agreed-upon assessment.
He said the precedent of the Brewer case, and the state law that made the difference, is an even bigger deal.
“They no longer will be using dark-store theory,” the Ellsworth assessor said. “That’s a big deal for the state of Maine.”
Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the year when Walmart settled a tax dispute with the city of Bangor.