City of Platteville and Walmart Settle on Assessed Value

Platteville Common Council members have approved an agreement with Walmart, reducing the assessed value of the store’s Platteville property by more than $3.5 million. Big-box retailers like Lowe’s, Target, Home Depot and Menards  have successfully challenged their property assessments, arguing that stores’ assessed values should be based on the sales of vacant and abandoned properties of similar size, thereby reducing their tax liability. Wisconsin caps the amount that local governments can levy, so the tax burden is redistributed when a property owner’s assessed value is reduced. Attorneys for Walmart argued in Grant County Circuit Court that its Platteville property, assessed at $12.7 million, should be valued at $6.1 million in 2018 and $6 million in 2019. A trial was scheduled in July, but city officials decided that was too risky. Instead, the city agreed to reduce the property’s value to $12.3 million for the years 2018 through 2020 and issue a tax refund of $14,654 within 30 days.