Former WISN morning co-host and my friend, Dan Deibert is all over a Journal/Sentinel article criticizing Wal-Mart because it 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 “abuse and distortion of income.”
Deibert says, and he’s absolutely right, that it’s downright nuts to rip Wal-Mart.
In his blog, he writes:
It doesn’t make sense for the Department of Revenue to attack one of it’s biggest collectors of state sales tax and a company that paid 26.2 million dollars in taxes last year.
The part that should worry everyone is not the libnut hatred of Walmart. It should be how the Doyle administration sets its sights on companies that do business in Wisconsin. Walmart is doing NOTHING wrong. There is nothing illegal going on here. What they are doing, in a very simplified manner, is they are setting up a company to own the real estate that their buildings sit on so in essence, they are paying rent to themselves, and taking a tax credit for doing so. They are not the only company to do it and it’s worth repeating this again… IT’S NOT ILLEGAL.
The venom with which the administration is attacking Walmart is particularly fervid. According to the Journal Sentinel article, “Revenue Department lawyer Mark Zimmer argues that the world’s largest retailer is not paying its fair share of taxes that support public schools, local police and fire departments and the highways it uses to transport what it sells in Wisconsin.”
Walmart sells items at lower prices than many other stores. Who does that help? Do you think it’s Bob living in Ozaukee County that needs to save $.75 on a can of deodorant? Or do you think it’s more likely a low-mid income mother with 3 kids that needs to buy less expensive clothes? The people that liberals like to say they support are being helped more by Walmart than the government will ever be able to do for them.
Walmart has an obligation to it’s shareholders and employees to keep costs low. One way of doing that is by doing whatever is legal to keep your costs down. To say Walmart doesn’t care about public schools, local police and fire departments, or roads, because they are doing something that is allowed by law is damned-near slanderous.Liberals who hate job-creating corporations and who no doubt flunked Economics 101 probably won’t understand
Deibert’s blog……….too many hard cold facts, not enough emotion.
