{"id":3979,"date":"2007-08-30T17:03:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-30T17:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2017-11-25T09:11:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T15:11:38","slug":"obeying-tax-laws-not-fair-say-tax-money-spenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/30\/obeying-tax-laws-not-fair-say-tax-money-spenders\/","title":{"rendered":"Obeying Tax Laws Not Fair, Say Tax Money Spenders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Wisconsin, the state is going after Wal-Mart for using legal techniques to lower its tax obligations: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/story\/index.aspx?id=652167\" target=\"_new\">Wal-Mart owes back taxes, state says: Paying rent to itself cuts millions off retailer&#8217;s tax bill<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has avoided millions of dollars in state taxes by paying rent on 87 Wisconsin properties in a way that the state Department of Revenue calls an &#8220;abuse and distortion of income.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As a result, state tax auditors say, Wal-Mart owes more than $17.7 million in back corporate income taxes, interest and penalties for 1998, 1999 and 2000. More could be due for later years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The cause for this?  The state is imposing its own standard:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Revenue Department lawyer Mark Zimmer argues that the world&#8217;s largest retailer is not paying <b>its fair share<\/b> of taxes that support public schools, local police and fire departments and the highways it uses to transport what it sells in Wisconsin. [Emphasis added]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Essentially, Wal-Mart is setting up its own entity to own the land that it uses for its stores; Corporate Wal-Mart gets to deduct the rent from its gross income so that its taxable income subject to taxation is less.  Then, Landlord Wal-Mart pays Corporate Wal-Mart the profits as dividends, which are taxed less than the same amount as straight income would have been taxed.<\/p>\n<p>Two distinct companies with different ownership wouldn&#8217;t draw the ire of the tax seekers; that it is, and it&#8217;s Wal-Mart, makes it look like easy pickings for the state of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully, Wal-Mart and its REIT will prevail.  A fie upon &#8220;creative&#8221; unelected officials who think their position gives them license to determine when &#8220;legal&#8221; isn&#8217;t &#8220;fair&#8221; and to use the people&#8217;s resources to extract more resources from the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Wisconsin, the state is going after Wal-Mart for using legal techniques to lower its tax obligations: Wal-Mart owes back taxes, state says: Paying rent to itself cuts millions off retailer&#8217;s tax bill: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has avoided millions of dollars in state taxes by paying rent on 87 Wisconsin properties in a way that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-on-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17864,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions\/17864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}