Miami-Dade County is Suing Genting Over Huge Tax Breaks on Its Undeveloped Casino Land
June 10, 2016 by Lucas Lechuga
Resorts World Miami[/caption]The situation with Resorts World Miami, a gigantic casino and resort proposed by Malaysian casino conglomerate Genting, has deteriorated from a glittering (although very controversial) development on Biscayne Bay in Downtown Miami, to a stagnant and mysterious project bogged down by legal obstacles and lawsuits. A suit that Genting filed against the county attempting to force through legalization of a casino is ongoing while the county has hit Genting with three separate suits arguing that the company has received unfair tax breaks and refunds, reports the Miami Herald.
The suits appear to correspond to the three years in which the county's Value Adjustment Board granted the company substantial tax refunds (2012, 2013, and 2014) totaling about $2.5 million with $255,000 in interest. Unsurprisingly the county isn't happy, but neither is Genting, which has counter-sued saying they believe the county inflated the assessed value to begin with. That assessed value, for 2012, was $132 million for the building and land that was the former bay front home of the Miami Herald and was to become Resorts World Miami. This was only slightly more than half of the $232 million the company paid for it. That same year, Genting was able to get that assessed value reduced from $132 million to a very impressively low $88 million. Meanwhile, without a casino, beyond a few empty promises Genting has shown little interest in building a resort of any kind on the site, and the land remains empty.
Welcome to the “New Miami.” Does the City’s so called “leadership” expect the thousands of new property owners who have been told that Miami is the “6th Best City for Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (“UHNWI’s”) to cheerfully chip in with their civic obligation?
I don’t think so. We don’t even know their names, or nationalities, as the properties are generally bought through a corporate “mask.”
Am glad that genting is sueing this corrupt County hope genting wins and built it’s casino