Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 4
Sales Tax Lawsuit Delayed Yet Again • Library Will Offer Menstrual Products • City's Dirtiest Workers to Get New Digs • Firefighters Specialize in Technical Rescues
My Facebook memories recently reminded me of a conversation my wife and I had with our then-6-year-old son in 2015:
Him: “What is St. Patrick’s Day?”
Me: “It’s a holiday.”
Him: “What’s it for?”
Me: “Getting drunk.”
My wife: “It’s also a celebration of Irish heritage.”
Me: “But millions of people with no Irish heritage celebrate by getting drunk.”
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody!
Sales Tax Lawsuit Delayed Yet Again
In July of 2021, Coppell and a few other warehouse-heavy cities sued Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar over his proposed changes to the distribution of sales tax revenues for online transactions. The trial has been delayed many times; last November, it was pushed back to May 6.
I had a good feeling about the proceedings starting on that date. The docket for Travis County’s 250th Civil District Court says the trial is expected to last four days, so I turned in a vacation request at my day job for the first full week of May. I reserved the guest room at my brother’s house in suburban Austin. I had all my ducks in a row so I could be there from the opening gavel, taking notes on your behalf.
Then, as has become my habit, I checked the docket again on Thursday morning. That’s when I discovered my ducks had been blown out of the water. The trial that was originally scheduled to begin in May of 2022 has been postponed until October of 2024.
After learning of this latest delay, I requested copies of some of the case’s most recent filings. On March 1, the attorneys for Coppell and its fellow plaintiffs — Carrollton, DeSoto, Farmers Branch, and Humble — turned in a fourth version of the suit. I won’t try to discern everything that has changed since the original suit was filed, but one difference jumped out at me.
The original suit said Coppell made $26.7 million annually from sales taxes on items associated with distribution centers and warehouses, which accounted for 18.6 percent of the city’s total revenue. This month’s version says Coppell now makes $19.1 million annually from sales taxes on such items, representing about 16 percent of the city’s total revenue.
Regardless of the exact amount, Coppell will lose tens of millions of dollars if Hegar’s proposed changes are allowed to take effect. The Comptroller wants the sales taxes for online transactions to shift from the sellers’ cities to the buyers’ cities. The suit says such a shift would harm Coppell and its fellow plaintiffs because “distribution centers, warehouses, and fulfillment centers all require city-supplied infrastructure and services that are more expensive than the cost of infrastructure and services provided for residential and retail development.”
The lawsuit says Hegar’s proposals “represent an inadequately explained deviation from the Comptroller’s own past guidance that is traced to the Comptroller’s incorrect understanding of e-commerce.” (My incorrect understanding of e-commerce leads me to repeatedly interrogate my wife about items on our bank statement.) The suit goes on to list 16 “incorrect factual presumptions” on Hegar’s part. Here are a few examples:
“The Comptroller presumed that website orders are ‘forwarded.’ They are not.”
“The Comptroller presumed that fulfillment centers do not ‘receive’ ‘orders.’ They do receive orders.”
“The Comptroller presumed that every computer connected to a seller’s e-commerce program receives an order for an item. They do not.”
The good news for Coppell and its allies is that Judge Karin Crump has ordered Hegar to put his proposed changes on hold “until a final hearing on the merits” of the lawsuit. The earliest that hearing might happen is mid-October, assuming there are no more delays. At this point, that’s not a safe assumption.
Library Will Offer Menstrual Products
Everyone knows you can borrow books and DVDs from the Cozby Library. And some people might be aware that its collection includes a Library of Things, ranging from a pair of binoculars and a bocce ball set to a metal detector and a microscope. Soon, the library will also offer menstrual products.