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
Duluth, GA. Businessman Threatens Suit Over Wal-Mart
Seller threatens $25 million suit over blocked Wal-Mart [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
So far, the battle has been played out in letters, not a courtroom.
Whether the correspondence is a prelude to a lawsuit — or a substitute — remains to be seen.
The city of Duluth has told landowner Jack Bandy and his attorney, former Gov. Roy Barnes, that it has no liability in any of the matters they detailed in an Aug. 28 letter alerting the city to Bandy’s plans to file a $25 million lawsuit.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, October 09 | 0 comments | Permalink
What Would Sam Say: Wal-Mart Forces Man Out of Home
Wal-Mart - which relentlessly markets itself as a wholesome, all-American brand - claims that it helps people “live better,” but it doesn’t seem that way for David McCarty from central Kentucky. After months of dealing with a Wal-Mart construction right in his backyard, McCarty decided to stand up for his rights...by sitting down. When Wal-Mart set dynamite charges feet from his house, McCarty refused to leave, staging a one-man protest against the big box development. Though Wal-Mart plans to go ahead with the construction, local opposition is becoming more and more common. Visit Battle-Mart, Wal-Mart Watch’s online guide to fighting Wal-Mart in your community, to find out more.
Lone man’s sit-in against Wal-Mart ends peacefully [Courier-Journal (KY)]
Complying with a court order, a Central Kentucky man today ended his sit-down protest a few feet from a blasting site — part of the construction of a Wal-Mart development adjacent to his property.
As dusk approached, David McCarty took refuge in his house just outside Lebanon before workers set off the dynamite near his back fence.
On Wednesday, weary from months of the nearby construction work and angry over what he said was damage to his property, McCarty had been determined to keep Wal-Mart from detonating the dynamite to make way for a water line.
So he spent that night sitting with his daughter, Kim Osbourn, in his backyard only a few feet from the dynamite, which had already been placed in the ground.
That led attorneys for Wal-Mart to request a restraining order against the McCartys today.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, October 05 | 44 comments | Permalink
Pennsylvania Does Not Want You To Suffer Kidney Failure
The Pennsylvania Department of Health has announced they will investigate an outbreak of E. coli-related illnesses believed to be the result of tainted beef. Topps is the guilty party - the company has been selling frozen, round beefsicles since 1940 - and announced a recall after 21 people in eight states fell ill.
The most serious case occurred in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where a teenage girl spent three weeks in the hospital because of kidney failure. Her Mother purchased frozen Topps patties in mid-August, and young Samantha Safranek made the unfortunate mistake of grilling and eating one just days later. The USDA has since tested multiple boxes, turning up the same strain of E. coli that caused Safranek to become sick. Safranek’s family, incidentally, has sued Wal-Mart for continuing to sell the product.
From the Business Wire:
Topps Meats announced on Tuesday that it would recall 331,582 pounds of frozen beef patties distributed in the New York City area as well as nationwide. Also, Wal-Mart recently announced it would remove the Topps burger products from its stores.
“We’re not sure why it took both Topps and Wal-Mart so long to respond to this danger,” Schlesinger said. “They were both notified last month, once Samantha’s lab test results were completed and once the E. coli diagnosis was made.”
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Friday, September 28 | 0 comments | Permalink
Johnson City, NY. Wal-Mart Advances Despite Protests
JC Wal-Mart proposal passes two key hurdles [Press and Sun-Bulletin (NY)]
A proposed Johnson City Wal-Mart passed two major hurdles Tuesday night and needs only two more approvals before construction can begin.
The village planning board unanimously declared the project free of any significant environmental impact and unanimously voted to allow developer Marc Newman to divide the site into a 14.1-acre lot for the proposed 132,000-square-foot Wal-Mart and a 1.2-acre lot for a 14,000-square-foot retail store yet to be named.
While the planning board had some environmental concerns regarding stormwater and traffic, board member Gerald Putman said he thought the developer’s plans show how those problems will be mitigated.
The project still needs site plan approval from the planning board as well as a special permit from the village board that will allow a retail store to operate in an industrial-use zone.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 26 | 0 comments | Permalink
Combined Reports For Everyone!
You’d think, of all companies, one that bills itself as “the place for one stop shopping” would champion the merits of placing everything under one roof.
Yet, when word of “combined reporting” makes its way down to a Bentonville boardroom, its enough to make a Wal-Mart executive reach for a $4 generic vicadin. Combined reporting is a tax policy that treats parent companies and its subsidiaries as one corporation for state income tax purposes - profits are combined, and then a share of that income is taxed by a state based on a formula calculating the corporation’s level of activity within that state.
Lawmakers in Wisconsin and Maryland are the latest to jump on the combined reporting bandwagon. Apparently in Wisconsin, $90 million is on the table should the state decide to reform its tax law and adopt combined reporting. Its a tough question for a state strapped for cash, and whose revenue department has already gone after WalMartopia for more than $17.7 million in back corporate income taxes, interest and penalties for 1998, 1999 and 2000.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Ninety million dollars is how much officials estimate could gush into state coffers annually if Wisconsin institutes combined reporting on corporate income tax returns. That’s about a 10% increase in corporate tax collections - a tempting prospect for some legislators at a time when Madison is striving for every nickel.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley had proposed the measure in his state as well, according to the Baltimore Sun:
The O’Malley administration estimates that by moving to “combined reporting,” the state would receive an additional $25 million per year in revenue, with three-fourths available for operating expenses and the remainder reserved for the Transportation Trust Fund. Some legislators believe that the annual fiscal impact could be much greater, perhaps $100 million or more.
Opponents of the measure counter that it will stifle growth, and that businesses facing higher taxes will simply shift jobs and investment to other states. Personally, I can’t wait to watch business after business pack their bags and flee the evilness that is combined reporting in California, New York, Texas and Illinois...the sound of them flocking to Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina will be deafening. The number of combined reporting states is growing so fast - five states proposed the measure this year alone - it is this expert’s opinion that by 2010, every single corporation will be located in Oklahoma. Go Sooners.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Monday, September 24 | 1 comments | Permalink
Clermont, FL. Town Yields to Residents
Plaza Collina, residents agree to compromise [Orlando Sentinel]
Lake County’s largest proposed shopping center has cleared two major hurdles from state planners and local opponents.
The county Board of Adjustment on Wednesday approved a settlement agreement between Plaza Collina’s lead developer, The Goodman Co., and a group of residents who lobbied against plans for the 988,000-square-foot commercial center planned for 142 acres along State Road 50 on the Lake-Orange county line.
County commissioners also had asked the Florida Department of Community Affairs to determine whether those plans were significantly different from what they approved last year. State planners responded with an e-mail on Tuesday, reporting that “the Department does not have any evidence on which to conclude that the changes would create a substantial deviation.”
That is huge for Plaza Collina, where part of preliminary construction has been held up for weeks pending the decisions.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 20 | 0 comments | Permalink
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