Saint Louis Developer Accused Of Scamming City For Tax Credits

ST. LOUIS, MO — Area developer Paul McKee kept almost $2.5 million in tax credits for a property he only owned for a few months, the Post-Dispatch reports, effectively pocketing the money for a building he didn't end up buying. The allegations came to light Tuesday in a trial related to another property deal the Missouri Department of Economic Development said was suspicious. In that case, city attorneys argue McKee bought a downtown building — the old Buster Brown shoe factory — ahead of it being acquired by the city to artificially inflate its price. The site had been proposed as the new western headquarters for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

In buying up property he would eventually return to the seller, McKee earned tens of millions of dollars in tax credits over about a decade which he did not return when sales fell through.

“There’s no process for paying it back," McKee testified Tuesday, according to the Post-Dispatch, adding that he would be happy to negotiate repayment with the state. He maintained that much of the money went toward specific projects, but very few of those projects have materialized.

Read more from the Post-Dispatch.

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