PROPERTY TAX FOR RIVERBOAT ABOUT $500,000

Property tax revenue from a proposed $37.5 million riverboat gambling complex could total nearly $500,000 in the floating casino's first year of operation.

That figure is based on Cape Girardeau's real estate and personal property tax rates and the estimated value of the riverboat development.

The Boyd Group, a Las Vegas gaming company that has proposed a riverboat here, has said it will dock a $15 million boat with $6 million worth of equipment in Cape Girardeau should voters approve riverboat gambling here in a June 8 election.

Cape Girardeau County Assessor Jerry Reynolds said a proposed $16.5 million land-based parking and dock facility would be subject to local real estate taxes, while the $21 million boat and equipment probably would be subject to personal property tax. Reynolds said the properties would have to be assessed before he could determine what the tax would be.

But based on what Boyd Group officials have said they would invest in property and equipment, the real estate tax would be about $214,000. The personal property tax for the boat would come to $283,500 the first year.

The proposed site for the development along North Main Street north of its intersection with Broadway is part of Cape Girardeau's Enterprise Zone.

Property owners in enterprise zones, which are intended to encourage development in economically strapped areas, generally enjoy a break on property taxes. But a new city law exempts retail and service businesses from the tax benefits.

City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said the city council last year approved the ordinance that restricts enterprise zone status to warehouses and manufacturing firms.

"In this case, the parking garage and dock that whole facility would not be eligible for the lower tax assessments," Fischer said.

Although both Fischer and Reynolds said they believed the riverboat would be assessed as personal property, neither could say for certain.

"My first answer to that is the boat would be personal property, and the equipment on it would be personal property," said Reynolds.

Some state officials also were unable Thursday to confirm whether the boat would be subject to property taxes.

Officials in Illinois and Iowa said riverboats there aren't assessed because neither state levies personal property taxes.

Missouri's gambling law indicates that the boat would be taxable. A section of the law says that riverboat operators are "subject to all income taxes, sales taxes, earnings taxes, use taxes, property taxes or any other tax or fee now or hereafter lawfully levied by any political subdivision..."

If the city is entitled to the full tax, Reynolds said any property tax revenue from the boat would decrease each year because of depreciation.

"Personal property has a way of depreciating very rapidly," he said. "I can see that boat in seven or eight years being down to 30 percent of its value."

Based on Boyd Group estimates of the property values, the total property taxes paid the first year of operation would be almost $500,000.

Cape Girardeau has a tax rate of $4.05 per $100 of assessed valuation, with about 70 percent of property taxes earmarked for the school district.

Based on the current rate and the added revenue from the Proposition C property tax rollback approved by voters in 1982, the school district's first-year windfall from the docking facility and riverboat would be about $360,000.

Larry Dew, the business manager for Cape Girardeau public schools, said district officials have not discussed the potential use of the additional revenue a riverboat could bring. "We're very neutral and are not involved in the issue at all," Dew said.