Wal-Mart Buys its Way into the Hearts of Politicians in Key States
Learn more about Wal-Mart’s political influence and other methods the company employs to roll back its taxes.
Wal-Mart Courts State Politicos [BusinessWeek]
Wal-Mart Stores has been sharply increasing political contributions in states where it is trying to cut its corporate tax bill. That’s according to data just released from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group based in Helena, Mont.
Over the past four election cycles, the retailing giant has ratcheted up contributions in nine states that are key to its operations: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Its political contributions in those states rose from $139,822 in the 2000 election cycle to $879,441 in the 2006 election cycle, according to the institute. Wal-Mart’s efforts to reduce its corporate taxes in those states have come to light as a result of a lawsuit that the attorney general of North Carolina filed against the company to challenge its tax-cutting strategies.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, October 26 | 27 comments | Permalink
Benn’s Grant, Va.- Planning Commission Draws A Crowd
Proposed development draws crowd 
Opponents and supporters of the Benn’s Grant project brought stickers to a public hearing.
By VERONICA GORLEY CHUFO
ISLE OF WIGHT — - Benn’s Grant supporters and opponents handed out stickers at the Isle of Wight County Planning Commission meeting Tuesday.Green “Yes, our community wants Benn’s Grant approved” stickers marked supporters. Opponents wore a yellow frown, a twist on the signature Wal-Mart smiley face.
But it was mostly opponents who filled the room, which has a capacity of 128 people, and spilled into the hall.
IW meeting on Benn’s Grant continued to Nov. 7
The proposed Benn’s Grant development would bring 1,087 homes and a retail district to a major crossroads in the mostly rural county. It’s the third time the Planning Commission has held a public hearing on the project.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Thursday, October 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
Oxford, NC. Wal-Mart’s Superstore Plans “On the Shelf”
There are 5 Wal-Marts within 25 miles of Oxford, North Carolina, including three supercenters, and one discount store right in Oxford. The supercenter in Henderson is less than 9 miles away. So the area is already saturated with Wal-Marts. The Herald Sun newspaper reports that a cluster of approved Wal-Mart supercenters are now on ice, despite the warm weather in the Research Triangle region. The newspaper claims that the store pullbacks trace back to Wal-Mart’s sudden announcement last June that it was scaling back the number of new supercenters by more than 25%, and expecting at least 80 stores in the review process for 2007 to be pushed back until 2008. Two supercenters in southern Durham and now frozen. The Durham store planned for MLK Jr. Parkway has approval to file for building permits. “It’s on the shelf, waiting to go,” he said. Supercenters proposed for Butner, Oxford and Creedmoor are also up in the air. Original plans for these stores were to have them open by August of 2008, but now that is not going to happen. Local officials in all three communities have approved the stores, but Wal-Mart has not committed to any timetable. “Due to the change in number of stores we cannot, in good faith, give accurate timelines on these projects at present,” a Wal-Mart spokesman admitted.
The Mayor of Butner told the newspaper, “What I had heard was that they were going to review each of them individually before they started building any more.” Oxford’s Mayor Al Woodlief told the paper he is confident Wal-Mart will build in Oxford—but Wal-Mart has never given him a timeline. Many residents in his small community are just as happy, because they have expressed concerns that Wal-Mart will have an adverse impact on the city’s quaint, picturesque downtown. The Mayor said he recently asked Granville County’s Economic Development Director Leon Turner what Wal-Mart’s plans were. “And he said that they, rather than going in locations where they weren’t, they were going in locations were they were,” the Mayor said. In other words, if you have a Wal-Mart discount store in your town, it will soon be history, as Wal-Mart replaces it, or expands it into a supercenter.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 23 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart: America’s Tax Deadbeat
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
A report released this week by the non-profit group Good Jobs First, concludes that Wal-Mart methodically works to lower its taxes by challenging the assessed value of its stores and distribution centers. Just as the company has become legendary for shaking down its vendors---so the retailer shakes down cities and towns for tax rebates.
The nonpartisan research center in Washington, D.C. documented in an earlier study how Wal-Mart has benefited from billions of dollars in public subsidies to build its stores and site infrastructure. Their new analysis, Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, charges that although the financial take is not as large as its public welfare subsidies---Wal-Mart “drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials.” According to Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First, “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.”
Good Jobs First reviewed a national sample of Wal-Mart stores and all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005. Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. At many facilities there have been appeals in multiple years. Overall, Good Jobs First estimates that Wal-Mart filed more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide. “These systematic property tax challenges are part of a larger pattern of state and local tax avoidance by Wal-Mart,” Mattera explained.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 16 | 23 comments | Permalink
Just How Big is Wal-Mart?
Bigger than the island of Manhattan.
From Good Magazine.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, October 10 | 21 comments | Permalink
Rolling Back Property Tax Payments
A new report from Good Jobs First exposes one of Wal-Mart’s most deceptive cost-cutting policies: consistent attempts to pay low taxes on its properties. By denying local communities their rightful dues, Wal-Mart sucks money away from public schools, local services and civic development. From GJF’s 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, nonpartisan research center in Washington, DC. The full text is at http://www.goodjobsfirst.org.
“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.”
Based on a large national sample of Wal-Mart stores and a review of all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005, Good Jobs First concludes that Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. At many facilities there have been appeals in multiple years. Overall, Good Jobs First estimates that the company has filed more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide.
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Posted by Media Team on Wednesday, October 10 | 6 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Developers Angered Over Wildlife Protection Standards
Serpentine rules putting the squeeze on developers [Philadelphia Enquirer]
New Jersey snakes have strangled a Burlington County housing development. They have slowed plans for both a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a 500-home subdivision in Ocean County to a crawl. And they are forcing a Garden State Parkway widening project through layers of environmental studies and extra work.
The lowly corn snake and northern pine snake - constrictors that are not endangered in any other state - are rare enough in New Jersey to be protected species.That status triggers extra environmental reviews and layers of tough regulation and remediation.
Developers, predictably, are seething - especially when just a few snakes halt a project worth millions of dollars. Some complain that because corn snakes and northern pine snakes are common in other parts of the United States and are sold in pet stores, they shouldn’t have special status in New Jersey.
“I think sometimes we create laws and follow the letter of it, and the bigger picture is forgotten,” said Bob Meyer, a developer who dropped his 110-home project in Medford after three corn snakes were discovered on the site.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, October 01 | 0 comments | Permalink
Virginia Officials Regret Traffic Pattern Changes
Stoplight at Wal-Mart upsets locals [Richmond Times-Dispatch (Va.)]
A state Transportation Department official admits the agency failed to fully evaluate the consequences of a new traffic light designed to regulate traffic flow near a new Wal-Mart.
“All I can do is admit a mistake was made and do my best to correct it,” Virginia Department of Transportation District Administrator David Ogle said during an impromptu meeting with neighborhood residents Friday.
The light, scheduled to begin operating in late October, was installed last month on state Route 3 near the northern edge of Kilmarnock.
Residents of a nearby neighborhood say the light and associated turn lanes are making it difficult for them to turn off Route 3 to their homes on Hawthorne Avenue.
“The entire area should have been looked at a little more,” Ogle said.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
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