After a stinging loss to the Chicago Bears in 2006, coach Dennis Green flipped out at a post game press conference and uttered the now famous phrase “we are who we thought they were!” In other words, the Arizona Cardinals were prepared for the game and understood the other team’s flaws, but failed to capitalize on them. This quote reminds me of the many site fights around the country. Residents understand what Wal-Mart brings to the table before they get a store, yet are still surprised by some of the negative aspects after they get it. Despite what Wal-Mart says during the planning process, a supercenter will bring more traffic, more crime, and small business destruction.
Wal-Mart did not have an easy time building a supercenter in American Canyon. Finally, in late September 2007, a Wal-Mart supercenter opened, replacing another location in Vallejo, which had been open for 16 years. After one year of service at the new location, the supercenter is getting mixed reviews according to the Times-Herald. While Wal-Mart supporters and some local business leaders welcome the creation of good jobs and tax revenue, Wal-Mart critics feel the store
“...has hurt the area in the last year mostly by increasing already heavy traffic, and boosting crime.” Joel Feller, who also fought a Wal-Mart super store in Vallejo, goes on to say that “The store has had a profoundly negative impact on the regional economy for a couple hundred in sales tax revenues.”
To be fair, some residents are happy with the new Wal-Mart supercenter. They point to sales tax figures and the convenience of one-stop shopping; however, Wal-Mart’s growth is not without consequences. As Stacy Mitchell points out in her paper “Major Flaws Uncovered in Study Claiming Wal-Mart Has Not Harmed Small Business,” Wal-Mart will do more harm than good to a community in the long run. Also, don’t forget Wal-Mart’s use of subsidies and Medicaid as a way to drain funds from a local community.
For the latest story, see the Times-Herald:
Posted by Research Team | Permalink
A Missouri City (Texas) woman convicted of a sex crime is out to prove that she has rights after being fired from her job at Wal-Mart.
Rebecca Vlasek, she of the inspiring mug shot, has filed suit claiming discrimination against our little Wal-Mart. Why you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.
Picture it: Brenham, Texas...1999. A sultry high school teacher pleads guilty to felony sexual assault of a minor. The charge: having a relationship with a 14-year-old female student. The result: 10 years on probation and the thrill of getting to register as an official pervert within the state of Texas. You can check out her rap sheet here and here.
So why is Vlasek complaining now? Well Wal-Mart, it turns out, discovered some time ago that it has quite a few sexual offenders working within its friendly confines. And, as it also turns out, every so often one of these offenders decides to, how shall we say, engage in some recidivism? Like this, and this...AND this........AANNNND this.
The result is that Wal-Mart, since adopting a new criminal background check policy, has fired approximately 800 employees who are registered sex offenders. Vlasek (pictured more recently), however, isn’t complaining about those that were fired...no, she’s complaining about the 25 or more (male, she claims) employee offenders Wal-Mart ISN’T firing. That’s right - according to her complaint, Vlasek is alleging that she has received disparate treatment because of her gender. We’ll see whether the court buys the arguments that Vlasek was fired not just because she “had relations” with a 14-year-old girl but because she is a woman...AND that Wal-Mart retained those other 25 or so offenders specifically because they’re men, and not for some other reason.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Idea of new Wal-Mart Supercenter in Redlands raises concerns [Press Enterprise (Calif.)]
If all the pieces fall into place, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could open a new Supercenter in north Redlands by 2010.
Longtime San Bernardino Wal-Mart shopper John Gibson plans to be among the first to visit the 215,000-square-foot store stocked with 150,000 items and featuring a full-service supermarket. Gibson talked during a recent visit to Redlands’ 17-year-old Wal-Mart at 2050 W. Redlands Blvd.
Opponents, on the other hand, say the project will result in increased traffic in the area and harm existing mom-and-pop stores, among other concerns.
“Why can’t the great Wal-Mart remodel the (store) we now have?” asked Redlands resident Robby Robinson. “If they sell the (existing) store, who’s going to buy it? Some swap-meet outfit like the one in San Bernardino? That should make Redlands look good.”
A battle could be brewing despite the fact that the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer has yet to submit an application to build the new Supercenter in Redlands. But there’s no doubt Wal-Mart is interested in a 40-acre tract at the southeast corner of Tennessee Street and San Bernardino Avenue.
Wal-Mart recently agreed to pay $450,000 for an environmental impact study on the property, according to an amended agreement approved at Redlands City Council’s most recent meeting.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
Delaware project has its doubters [Santa Cruz Sentinel (Calif.)]
As Santa Cruz leaders consider tonight whether to approve a 20-acre live-work development on Westside industrial land, some residents wonder whether there will be enough water, traffic control, fire and police services to tend to the hundreds of residents and customers the project is expected to attract.
“Single-family residences are a tax burden to the city, not a tax benefit,” said Westside resident and project critic Reed Searle.
Homes don’t produce the sales tax revenue that the city depends on to provide basic services, he said.
Supporters say concerns are overblown and see the development as an incubator for research and design offices, engineering firms, software companies and other small businesses.
“In terms of tax dollars, they’re right,” the city could have less money to provide some services, said Mayor Ryan Coonerty. “From a city budget point of view, the best thing we could do is put in a Wal-Mart. But I don’t think that’s what this community wants or needs.”
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
For years, the correlation between Wal-Mart stores and increased crime has been well-documented. A lesser-examined corollary to this phenomenon is the burden placed on city and county police forces when Wal-Mart refuses to patrol its own grounds. A recent article in The Repository reveals a disturbing picture of crime unleashed – Wal-Mart style – in the town of Canton, Ohio:
In the first half of this year, Canton police have been called to the two city Wal-Marts a combined 425 times, police records show.
Police reports show both 24-hour stores — the second is located at 3200 Atlantic Blvd. NE and off U.S. Route 62 — deal with everything from forged checks to armed robbery. A city officer was seriously injured after being attacked by a bat-wielding Wal-Mart customer last month.
Between Jan. 1 and June 30, officers were called to the Wal-Mart at 3200 Atlantic Blvd. NE 275 times. The majority of those calls — 150 — were for shoplifters, police records show…
The crime-related problems faced by both stores also are a problem for the Canton Municipal Courts, so much that Court Administrator Michael Kochera said an additional bailiff may be hired just to handle booking misdemeanor offenders.
In another instance, the increase in crime (and the taxing effect upon law-enforcement officials) was projected far in advance by city officials in an area where Wal-Mart would soon arise. In a memo uncovered by a community group in Suisan City, CA, the police chief admitted that the “commercial activity” of a Wal-Mart Supercenter has the “potential...for increased vehicle and residential burglaries.”
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Posted by Tony Calero | Permalink
Chandler Wal-Mart set to become a supercenter [East Valley Tribune (Az.)]
Chandler’s first Wal-Mart is going super. The store at 800 W. Warner Road, which has sold general merchandise for about 20 years, is in the beginning stages of an expansion that will add groceries, making it a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
According to Delia Garcia, spokeswoman for Wal-Mart in Arizona, the 29,000-square-foot expansion should take about 15 months to complete.
She said plans are to minimize inconvenience. There will be noise from the work, and customers will notice some disruption in the parking lot and merchandise will be moved around during construction.
“They might not find items where they expect to find them,” Garcia said.
When it is finished, the store’s square footage will be slightly less than the square footage of three football fields.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
Residents oppose Wal-Mart [London Free Press (Canada)]
They say you can’t halt progress, but a group of residents from the Meadowlily Road area are trying to make sure progress doesn’t take a heavy toll on the environment.
About 40 people, including London Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best, were on hand at Summerside Community Church last night to voice concerns about an impending big-box store invasion.
“I have grown up in this area and live not too far away from here, so I can appreciate some of the issues the residents have in particular the residents on Meadowlily Road,” DeCicco-Best told The Free Press.
Representatives of SmartCentres Inc., a development firm representing the Wal-Mart chain, met with residents to discuss changes made to the planned Wal-Mart store at the corner of Meadowlily and Commissioner’s Road in southeast London.
The proposed store would be located next to a complex that includes a heritage site, a working farm and a forest designated as an Environmentally Significant Area (ESA).
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
Wal-Mart fires next barrage with suit against Zionsville [Indianapolis Star]
Zionsville residents are bracing themselves for another protracted court battle between the town and retail giant Wal-Mart, and some aren’t optimistic about the outcome.
The store filed suit against Zionsville June 18, nearly a month after the town turned down its plan to build a 185,000-square-foot superstore on U.S. 421. It’s a battle that’s been waging since 2006.
Local residents Martin and Anna Baker dread the thought of Wal-Mart coming to town, but Kathleen Rivers looks forward to seeing the familiar blue and grey box store on the town’s outskirts. All three believe a Zionsville Wal-Mart is inevitable.
“The whole thing is a big waste of town money,” Rivers said. “Wal-Mart is such a big company, they can win out easy against a small town. We could put the money to better use than trying to fight off some big corporation.”
The Bakers echoed Rivers’ sentiments, but hoped the Arkansas-based retailer would heed the town’s wishes and go elsewhere.
“If Wal-Mart thinks this would be a good area for them, there are better places for them than (U.S.) 421,” Martin Baker said. “Maybe they could look around the Anson area where the population would be more welcoming.”
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
WAL-MART: Pleading their case [Tonawanda News (N.Y.)]
What is the economic impact of having a Wal-Mart or not?
That’s what one member of a group in favor of bringing the retail giant here asked members of the North Tonawanda Common Council Tuesday.
For all the boisterous public input Wal-Mart plans have generated in the past, Tuesday’s workshop was notably subdued, except for applause by some of the 12 attendees there in support of the group.
A police officer stood in the corner, assigned to the council chambers on a night the topic of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter was to be discussed.
North Tonawanda resident Tammy Godyn, founder of the pro-Wal-Mart citizen’s group Lumber City Liaisons, thanked members of the North Tonawanda Common Council and others involved in the proposal’s environmental impact study for their “meticulous work,” in bringing that months-long phase of planning to a conclusion early this month.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
The Northwest Arkansas Morning News released over the weekend a Kim Morrison piece on some of the largest legal cases currently pending against Wal-Mart, and most of the findings really shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point. There is, of course, the Dukes gender discrimination suit, and the multitude of wage and hour cases pending - the full extent of which you can also see here, on Wal-Mart’s SEC filing. The two largest wage/hour cases to date - Savaglio and Braun/Hummel - have resulted in combined judgments of over $350 million against Wal-Mart, although the cases are currently in the appeals stages, so Wal-Mart has yet to pay a cent.
What you might find really interesting in the story is the way a company the size of Wal-Mart plans ahead for the day it will have to make a possible million billion-dollar payout:
“It’s not like they wouldn’t be able to pay the light bill if they had a billion dollar settlement,” said Patricia Edwards, fund manager with San Francisco-based Wentworth, Hauser and Violic. “It wouldn’t be good, don’t get me wrong. But the low point in cash last year at quarter end was just short of $5 billion.”
Edwards said Wal-Mart reserves cash for potential future lawsuit payouts so there would be a reduced impact on shareholders in the event of such a case. With Wal-Mart’s ability to absorb some of the impact, a billion dollar payout may show up in earnings as a loss of 5 cents per share, Edwards said.
Well that is certainly good to know, that Wal-Mart - instead of making sure its female employees are treated equally, and ALL of its employees are provided adequate breaks and paid for the overtime they work - has socked plenty of money away underneath its $150 bargain mattresses to pay for its legal shortcomings.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Guest Soapbox: Wal-Mart Supercenter a badly done deal [Hi-Desert Star (Calif.)]
In 1992, a newly incorporated Yucca Valley town welcomed Wal-Mart with a gift of a million dollars and a look the other way as 468 Joshua trees were bladed down. This new store on the east edge of town and the first Gulf War ended many local businesses. Another war and maybe another Wal-Mart Supercenter on the east edge of town will bring much more sacrifice from the Yucca Valley business community. The Town Council soon decides if the Morongo Basin needs to serve this global giant from Arkansas. The Surrender Monkeys to Development at any cost say yes. The people who have considered the trade in local jobs, business loss and social damage say no.
The proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter is about 180,000 square feet with the grocery portion taking 60,000 square feet. That leaves 120,000 square feet for the non-grocery retail, which is 10,000 square feet or 8 percent more than the old Wal-Mart. Although that increase doesn’t match all the hype of Wal-Mart’s needed extra room, the grocery portion is the part that does the damage. Wal-Mart wants it customers that normally visit two to three times a month as a Wal-Mart to increase their visitation to two to three times a week as a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The resulting 400 percent visit increase captures even more non-grocery retail. This grocery outlet becomes a “Loss Leader” and Wal-Mart will subsidize its damage till Yucca Valley loses two grocery stores and a number of assorted retail businesses. Wal-Mart is about its sustainability, not Yucca Valley’s or the Morongo Basin’s.On May 22, the Town Council received more timely information about Wal-Mart Supercenter’s environmental impact report. Hundreds of pages of studies, reports and memos in PDF form and hard copy. We, as the Morongo Basin Conservation Association (MBCA), got permission to put this information on our Web site, http://www.mbconservation.org. Dr. Philip King’s memo on the urban decay of Yucca Valley exposes the impacts this project would have on retail demand, a glut of vacant retail space and the predatory grocery sales of Wal-Mart. The other reports re-affirm the increase in crime, traffic and social ills that this Wal-Mart Supercenter presents to Yucca Valley.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
Proposal to locate a Wal-Mart near Cheswold tabled [The News Journal (Del.)]
A proposal to locate a Wal-Mart Super Center off U.S. 13 between Dover and Cheswold was tabled Thursday night by the Kent County Regional Planning Commission, which had raised numerous questions about the project at a public hearing a week earlier.
Constantine Malmberg, the local lawyer for Cheswold Village Properties LLC, the project developer, requested the delay, promising to meet during the interim with residents of the area and to address a raft of concerns raised by the planning staff.
The site plan calls for a 225,000-square-foot Super Center on 22 acres and an adjacent strip shopping center offering 25,000 square feet of retail floor space on seven acres just off U.S. 13 south of Simms Woods Road. The two developments would be served by a traffic signal at a new access road on U.S. 13, about 1,000 feet south of Simms Woods Road.
At the public hearing, residents said the project would worsen existing flood problems and attract traffic and crime to the area. Several commissioners expressed dismay at the time that representatives of Wal-Mart and the developers had not met with residents to hear their concerns.
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Posted by Joel Nezianya | Permalink
NRA Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre peppered Wal-Mart with a little sniper fire yesterday, but today broke out the heavy artillery. NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg took his share of the heat as well.
LaPierre, from yesterday’s AP article on the Wal-Mart’s new gun policy:
“I honestly think it’s a corporation trying to curry favor with politicians as opposed to doing anything meaningful about stopping crime.”
LaPierre, from today’s statement posted on the NRA website:
“It’s too bad Wal-Mart’s putting political correctness above treating their customers with respect. If Sam Walton had treated his customers like this back when Wal-Mart was just a dime store in Arkansas, I doubt the company would still be in business.”
Ouch.
Bloomberg, Wal-Mart and You [NRA News]:
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s latest volley in his war on gun ownership is convincing Wal-Mart that they need to film every firearm purchase.
The goal, according to the mayor, is to reduce crime. But we know gun control doesn’t equal crime control. And this reeks of a public relations stunt instead of a crime-fighting measure.
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Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
Wal-Mart has often found itself on the wrong end of a gun.
The company sells more firearms than any retailer on the planet, but this week Wal-Mart took aim at its own lax guns sales policies---and hit the target with some powerful potential political allies.
Wal-Mart told the media that it has joined New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, in an initiative called The Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership. Wal-Mart pledged to implement new gun sale rules at less than one-third of its American stores. The retailer said it will create a new record and taping system for guns that are subsequently used to commit a crime. If the gun purchaser returns to Wal-Mart to buy another firearm, the system would warn the clerk not to make the sale. The system would also allow the police to view the tapes as part of a crime investigation. Wal-Mart said it would also institute tougher background checks for its “associates” who work in the firearms department. Wal-Mart admitted that the new policies would cost the company money. “The costs are, we think, part of what it takes to be responsible. Everything is not pain-free,” the company’s spokesman told the Associated Press.
Wal-Mart has had its own troubled history with guns. For example, in January of 2005, an investigation by the California Attorney General’s office revealed that Wal-Mart allegedly violated the state’s gun laws 2,891 times over a three year period. Wal-Mart illegally sold a gun to someone in California 2.6 times everyday from 2000 to 2003. The violations included selling to 23 people prohibited from owning guns, selling guns before waiting for a criminal background check, failing to identify the buyer’s identity, and allowing people to make “straw purchases” on behalf of another person prohibited from owning guns.
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Posted by Al Norman | Permalink
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
It’s been a quiet week in Wal-Mart parking lots and bathrooms. The market may be tanking, but crime at Wal-Mart shows no signs of slowing down.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened this past week at Wal-Mart---just the litany of usual bomb threats, drunk driving, child molestations, armed robberies, and assorted mayhem. While you were shopping for Mickey Mouse Lawn Furniture in Aisle 6, every miscreant on the planet seemed to be converging on Wal-Mart parking lots or bathrooms. Just this past week:
- Sunday, March 16: A 28-year-old man was arrested at the Santee, California Wal-Mart after a 9 year old boy reported being assaulted in the store’s bathroom. The boy was in the bathroom while his mother waited outside. Police say a man grabbed and groped the boy over his clothing. The boy ran out of the bathroom and told his mother about the assault. The woman then reported the assault to Wal-Mart staff and the Sheriff’s Department.
- Tuesday, March 18: A Wal-Mart in Bismarck, North Dakota reports another bomb threat. The south Wal-Mart received a call at 9:05 am from a caller who said a bomb been placed in the store. The employee who answered the phone asked where the bomb was, and the caller hung up the phone. The store was evacuated, and employees searched the building, A member of the bomb quad responded and found nothing suspicious.
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Posted by Al Norman | Permalink
It is something, I’ll admit, I had heard very little about, even taking into account three years of law school. Civil recovery. It actually sounds very benign, sort of like something you might expect to receive if you slip and fall in a store check-out aisle, or get rear-ended on I-66 while driving home from work. What it really is, is when retailers refer names to lawyers and debt collectors, who then pursue the alleged shoplifters for monetary penalties with letters and phone calls.
The Wall Street Journal goes into great length on the phenomenon, including detailing the story of one Home Depot shopper who was told by a law firm to pay $3000 for a set of drill bits he had purchased legally, suggesting he would face a legal suit if he failed to pay up:
In the Home Depot case, Mr. Rudge, the handyman, had a set of drill bits poking out of his shirt pocket when he went through the checkout line at a Miami store in December 2002, according to a suit he later filed against Home Depot. After he paid $66 for his purchases, a security guard stopped him on his way out and asked him about the drill bits...Prosecutors charged the handyman with shoplifting, then dropped the charge in February 2003 when he showed them a receipt for the drill bits. But about a month later, according to his suit, he got a letter from the Palmer Reifler law firm demanding he pay a little over $3,000 within 20 days.
Mr. Rudge probably should have remembered to take the previously purchased drill bits out of his pocket before going shopping, sure, but that doesn’t change the larger story. Too many retailers, it appears, are going after anyone they can, regardless of whether they’ve actually done anything illegal. Often, the retailer sends out letters ordering suspected shoplifters to pay hundreds of dollars or more, threatening a suit that the company never plans on following up on. Too many people don’t understand their rights, and settle by paying what the letter states thinking if they don’t, a jail cell awaits.
Palmer, Reifler & Associates appears to be a favorite “gouge-happy” law firm of several retailers, including Home Depot, Walgreen’s, and yes, Wal-Mart. If you want disturbing, read this statement from one of Palmer’s “lawyers”:
A partner at the law firm has said that it sends out about 1.2 million civil-recovery demand letters a year but follows up by suing fewer than 10 times a year.
That’s quite a ratio, no? Feel free to check out Palmer’s website, they seem like good fellas so maybe we should cut them a break. The WSJ story is long, but interesting...you can enjoy it below.
Big Retail Chains Dun Mere Suspects in Theft (The Wall Street Journal)
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Keller Rohrback L.L.P. has announced that it is investigating Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. regarding the various investment options currently being offered to the participants in the Wal-Mart Profit Sharing and 401(k) Plan.
According to its website, ERISAfraud.com, Keller Rohrback is an expert in these sort of things, and believes Wal-Mart is engaging in some possibly unseemly behavior. At the moment, we’re looking into exactly what’s going on here, so we’ll update as necessary. One thing we can be sure of though...Keller Rohrback is not worried about Wal-Mart’s moratorium on legal fee increases:
Keller Rohrback L.L.P is one of America’s leading law firms pursuing the rights of employees under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). Keller Rohrback helped pioneer the development of breach of fiduciary duty law under ERISA and is a nationally recognized leader in this area, having played a major role in establishing that ERISA’s strict fiduciary duties apply to a company’s investment of its employees’ retirement savings in the stock of their employers.
Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
Chalace Lowry was worried that her boss, Mona Williams, was doing some insider trading. Chalace, being an upstanding citizen, reported her concerns to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart, being a company consumed by corporate corruption, screwed Chalace over. That didn’t stop her from continuing to work at the company. But it also didn’t stop the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from investigating Wal-Mart for its actions. The full story from BusinessWeek:
OSHA’s Wal-Mart Investigation [BusinessWeek]
The Labor Dept.’s Occupational Safety & Health Administration has opened an investigation into a whistleblower complaint against Wal-Mart Stores. OSHA sent a letter to Chalace Epley Lowry, the employee involved, saying the agency is “notifying the party named in the complaint about the filing of the complaint” and “conducting an investigation into your allegations,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by BusinessWeek.
BusinessWeek wrote in June about Lowry (BusinessWeek.com, 6/13/07), an administrative assistant in the company’s communications department, after she reported what she believed could have been insider trading by a senior executive. The executive was quickly cleared. But in the process, Lowry’s identity was revealed to the executive. This resulted in her having to look for another position within the company, with no guarantee that she would get one.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is reporting that a federal appeals court has upheld a decision ordering a new sentencing for former Wal-Mart executive Tom Coughlin.
In January of last year, Coughlin plead guilty to wire fraud and tax evasion, and admitted that he had stolen gift cards and equipment from his former employer. Despite facing a possible 28 years in prison and fines of over $1.3 million, Coughlin was let off relatively easily, primarily because it was argued that his detiorating health made prison time impossible. His initial sentence included 27 months of home detention and 33 months probation, plus fines and restitution adding up to approximately $460,000.
In August of this year, a 3-judge panel on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument that Coughlin’s health problems - a list including heart failure, diabetes, obesity and gout - could not be properly treated in prison, and ordered a new sentencing hearing. Prosecutors originally sought a sentence of at least 27 months, although it’s believed that request may be reduced to as little as 6 months.
Justices: Coughlin due new sentence [Arkansas Democrat-Gazette]
A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a decision ordering a new sentence for former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive Tom Coughlin on a 2006 fraud conviction.
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Posted by Corey Himrod | Permalink
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 | Permalink
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