Hardly! The new study by Good Jobs First shows how Wal-Mart Rolls Back Property Tax Payments by aggressively pursuing property tax reassessments. Here are a few excerpts today's press release:
The first-ever investigation of Wal-Mart's local property tax records finds that the retail giant systematically seeks to minimize its payment of taxes that support public schools and other vital government services. That is the key finding of Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, a report released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research center in Washington, DC. The full text is available at www.goodjobsfirst.org/pdf/walmartproptax.pdf"Wal-Mart, a company with $350 billion in annual revenues and $11 billion in profits, drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials," said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report. "When the company succeeds in one of these challenges, it diminishes the funds available to pay for education, police and fire protection, and other essential services provided by local governments."
In some cases, Wal-Mart has drained hundreds of thousands of dollars from local governments through aggressive tax appeals.
In 2004 Wal-Mart proposed that the assessment of its distribution center in Tomah, Wisconsin be lowered from $43.6 million to $23 million. The city resisted, but Wal-Mart persisted. This year the matter was finally settled, with the city agreeing to drop the assessment to $31.4 million and refund the company more than $300,000 for each of three years--a total of $949,000.Wal-Mart has filed 11 separate challenges at its distribution center in the northern California city of Red Bluff. The company first appealed for the years 1994-1996 but got no change. It then appealed for the years 1997-2002 and reached agreement on changes for each year, achieving total savings of $644,000--a substantial amount but much less than what Wal-Mart was seeking. The company returned with appeals for 2005 and 2006 and recouped another $150,000.
In 2003 Wal-Mart succeeded in getting the real property assessment of its Supercenter on East Hampden Avenue in the Denver suburb of Aurora reduced from about $22 million to $9.6 million. This brought the company tax savings of $456,000.Even when local governments defeat a Wal-Mart appeal entirely, there still may be substantial costs for the community. Assessors told us of major cases in which they had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on outside lawyers, appraisers and other consultants to prepare their defense.
Also, check out WalMartSubsidyWatch.com for a searchable database of Wal-Mart's tax appeals.
Posted by Matthew - October 10, 2007 05:12 PM - Hard to Believe