Wal-Mart's Self-Dealing Income Tax Scam North Carolina Court Tosses Out $33.5 Million Case

Over the years, Wal-Mart has devoted much of its vaunted genius to devising new ways to exploit people. In its latest ploy, the company has targeted state taxpayers in a convoluted Ponzi scheme that leaves the retailer looking like a common tax deadbeat.

In February of 2007, the Wall Street Journal ran a story revealing that Wal-Mart pays billions of dollars a year in rent for its stores, but in 25 states -- most of them east of the Mississippi -- it has been paying most of that rent to itself, and then deducting that amount from its state taxes. By so doing, Wal-Mart has avoided paying several hundred million dollars in state taxes.

Based on a scheme developed by its accounting firm, Ernst & Young, for a "local tax reduction strategy," Wal-Mart's financial self-dealing allows it to pay rent to itself through a maze of eight corporate subsidiaries created in November of 1996, including Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). The rent appears as an expense on state tax forms, and is thus deducted from its taxable revenues. Under the agreement with itself, Wal-Mart pays 2.5% of gross sales monthly as rent to its own REIT, which then wires the money quarterly to Wal-Mart Property Company in the form of a dividend, which is then paid to Wal-Mart Stores as a tax-exempt "dividends received."

All of these transactions are handled through a "cash management agreement" between the corporate parties. Neither the REIT nor the Property Company ever had any employees. The REITs don't pay taxes, as long as they pay 90% of their income out in dividends to shareholders. In Wal-Mart's case, the REITs are owned by Wal-Mart subsidiaries which are registered in Delaware, a state that has no corporate income tax. Wal-Mart gets the benefit of the rent expense, but also gets the benefit of the non-taxed dividend, on the same monies. The dividends escape taxation, and the original rent that created the dividends is deducted from taxable income in the states where the "expense" is incurred. The rent, in essence, goes from one Wal-Mart pocket, into another.

This strategy has been used by Wal-Mart for 11 years. But the state of North Carolina challenged the tax dodge two years ago, and disallowed the rental deduction from its taxable income for the period 1999 to 2002. North Carolina insisted that Wal-Mart submit "combined returns" for Wal-Mart Stores East, Wal-Mart REIT, and Wal-Mart Property Company. The state argued that Wal-Mart was "distorting its true net income." It charged that Wal-Mart Stores East owned all the stock of Wal-Mart Property Company, which owned a majority of the shares of Wal-Mart REIT. Wal-Mart paid the bill, but then sued the state's Secretary of Revenue, Reginald Hinton, in 2006, charging that it did not owe the higher taxes, because North Carolina did not have the right to consolidate its expenses in North Carolina with its subsidiaries in Delaware.

After the lawsuit was filed, both sides asked the court for a Summary Judgment, which is a decision made on the basis of statements and evidence presented for the record without a trial. It is used when there is no dispute as to the facts of the case, and one party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. On December 31, 2007 an Emergency Special Judge in Wade County, North Carolina Superior Court, ruled in favor of the state of North Carolina, and against Wal-Mart's lawsuit. The Judge ruled that North Carolina has the statutory right to force a corporation to state its "true net income" through a consolidated statement, "so as to properly reflect the extent of the corporation's activities in the state." Judge Clarence E. Horton ruled that Wal-Mart's treatment of rent had no "real economic substance," and was only a mechanism for reducing the taxes it pays to the state of North Carolina.

Wal-Mart's was seeking a $30 million refund in taxes for Wal-Mart, and $3.5 million for Sam's Club, including interest and penalties, based on what state officials had charged the company after disallowing its rental deduction. The Wall Street Journal estimates that this tax avoidance scheme saved Wal-Mart $230 million over a four year period. "Plaintiffs do not deny the facts demonstrating the circular journey taken by the 'rents' paid by these plaintiffs," Judge Horton said, "but contend that on each leg of the journey plaintiffs were only taking advantage of a lawful deduction afforded them by then-existing tax law. Such a piecemeal approach exalts form over substance, however...There is no evidence that the rent transaction, taken as a whole, has any real economic substance apart from its beneficial effect on plaintiffs' North Carolina tax liability. It is particularly difficult for the court to conclude that rents were actually 'paid,' when they are subsequently returned to the payor corporation."

Wal-Mart has also been burned on this tax scheme in Wisconsin.

According to Wal-Mart, they paid more than $26.2 million in state and local taxes in the state of Wisconsin in FYE 2007. Unfortunately, the state of Wisconsin does not agree with that figure, and is charging that the world's richest retailer owes the state millions in back taxes.

Research by the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) found that Wal-Mart used an array of tax loopholes, such as the REITs, to pay less than half of the state income tax that it would have been expected to pay. In Wisconsin, on estimated income of $852 million from 2000 to 2003, Wal-Mart paid only $3 million in state income tax -- a tax rate of 0.35% versus the 7.9% statutory tax rate corporations are supposed to pay in Wisconsin. "In effect, Wal-Mart pays rent to itself and takes a deduction for doing so," according to the Wisconsin Revenue Department claim.

The REIT pays the rent as part of a dividend to the parent company. The dividend is tax-free under state and federal law. The state Revenue Department says that Wal-Mart set up these subsidiaries for the sole purpose of avoiding taxes, and on that basis the state disallowed the deduction, and now wants Wal-Mart to pay its bills -- which prompted Wal-Mart to challenge the state's ruling.

State officials in Wisconsin charge that by using this mechanism, Wal-Mart has dodged millions in tax payments by paying rent on 87 Wisconsin properties. The state Department of Revenue calls Wal-Mart's actions an "abuse and distortion of income." The Arkansas-based retailer now owes the taxpayers of Wisconsin $17.7 million in corporate taxes and interest just for the years 1998, 1999, and 2000, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Figures for more recent years have not been made public. Wisconsin Revenue Department lawyers told the newspaper that because Wal-Mart has not been paying its fair share of taxes, it has been hurting the public schools, local police and fire departments and the highways the company uses in the process of doing business in the state.

Because Wal-Mart doesn't pay its fair share, other individual taxpayers and small businesses in the state have to assume an unfair burden. These other taxpayers, the state said, are not wealthy corporations who are able to set up "elaborate mechanisms," to avoid paying taxes. The state's Tax Appeals Commission is currently hearing the case.

"Anything Wal-Mart can do to lawfully lower its costs allows the company to pass it along through lower prices," a company spokesman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "This is a lawful (tax) structure in Wisconsin." It can also be argued that Wal-Mart did not "pass it along" to consumers, but pocketed the difference as part of its $11.4 billion in profits last year. The Wal-Mart "tax deadbeat" story has forced some state lawmakers in Wisconsin to propose language in the state's budget that would outlaw the "abusive" tax scheme that Wal-Mart apparently still uses to avoid paying taxes. State Senator Russ Decker (D-Schofield), said Wal-Mart and others who use the deduction are "scamming the system, and we ought to plug the loophole." Senate Majority Leader Judy Robson (D-Beloit) accused Wal-Mart of being the "poster child" for corporations that don't pay their fair share of taxes. Other competitive retailers in Wisconsin, like Sears and Kohl's, told the newspaper they do not use the "captive REIT" technique to avoid state taxes. Wal-Mart is Wisconsin's largest private employer, with 28,920 workers.

If the Tax Appeals Commission comes down against Wal-Mart, the retailer is expected to take its case to court, which means Wisconsin taxpayers aren't going to see any relief from Wal-Mart for many years to come. "It's just a fairness issue," one State Senator told the Journal Sentinel. "Go down on Main Street -- these businesses are being economically disadvantaged to these big corporations."

A number of other states, like Massachusetts, are considering "combined reporting" tax reform, which requires corporations to report all their revenues in one state, ending the ability to assign costs to other states and escape taxation. All related companies would have to file one income tax return. In Massachusetts, Wal-Mart says it paid nearly $19 million in state and local taxes in 2006. Assuming roughly $11 million of that was state income tax, the retailer also avoided $5.4 million by deducting rent it paid to its Delaware-based REIT as a business expense, lowering its taxable income. The company also cost taxpayers $7.2 million in health care costs for 6,000 Wal-Mart workers and dependents on Medicaid. The net result is that Massachusetts taxpayers actually lost money on the 45 Wal-Mart stores in their state. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has drafted legislation that would close Wal-Mart's loophole in the Commonwealth, but the Massachusetts General Court has not taken up the bill.

Wal-Mart maintains that it is only taking advantage of a lawful deduction afforded by then-existing tax law. But the North Carolina Court has referred to this corporate behavior as a "circular journey" of money. "Such a piecemeal approach exalts form over substance," the court wrote. Most Wal-Mart customers are also taxpayers, and the retailer's elaborate efforts to avoid paying taxes, robs each of its taxpaying customers of revenue that could have been use to educate children, pave roads, or bolster local aid for police and fire services.

Wal-Mart argues that it passed these cost savings onto its customers. But the reality is, Wal-Mart the tax deadbeat, passed these costs onto its unsuspecting customers by not paying its fair share of state taxes. This week's court decision is likely to have legal implications across the country, because Wal-Mart has used the methodology for more than a decade in so many other states.

Wal-Mart has decided that it will appeal the North Carolina decision, so state taxpayers can expect to wait a yeare or longer for any resolution of this claim. "We believe that all taxpayers should have the right to rely on clearly defined tax laws that are reasonably and fairly enforced," a company spokesman said. In this case, "all taxpayers" refers to the Wal-Mart corporation -- not the rest of the American taxpayers who are picking up Wal-Mart's deadbeat tax bill.

Al Norman is the founder of sprawl-busters.com and the author of "The Case Against Wal-Mart."

Comments

[larry278]

That ends Wal-Mart's claim that Wal-Mart stores benefit the state & local economy.

[realitytrumpsbull]

In Germany, Wal-Mart has already turned over
a lot of their stores to german companies.
Maybe there's such a thing as 'too big'...?
But, Big Box and other national/global retailers
are in business to make money, and there's
nothing saying the tax system gives them a square deal off the bat, either. But, c'est la
vie, you run a business, the government wants
a piece of it, especially if you're a hugely
successful global corporation like Wal-Mart.
Ah, globalizationererer...

[dsarokin]

Wal Mart's attempts to define-away their legal obligations go right back to their very roots. Way back when they were first getting started in the 1960's, they tried to argue that they weren't, legally speaking, an "enterprise", and therefore werent' covered by minimum wage laws:
http://firstmention.com/walmart.aspx
The courts, in West v Wal Mart, gave them a hearty smack-down.

[knosiswar]

Nice Work, Thanks for a piece of news.

[mpgarr]

The actions of Wal-Mart show that they are the epitome of corporate evil---there is really nothing at all good with Wal-Mart's business model--it looks good at first blush--sellling products at cheap prices-but the fact is in life---you pay in the end one way or the other--but with Wal-Mart--it has been well defined in many forms the myriad ways the Wal-Mart manner of doing business has been bad for America and Americans--save the members of the Walton family and those that make up top Wal-Mart management. The rest of us have had to pay for Wal-Mart's cheap prices whether we do business with them or not.

[Justinpassing]

TCB means taking care of business....for you non-Elvis fans.

[Justinpassing]

T.C.B. IN NORTH CAROLINA....GOOD JOB!

[MsJoanne]

Coupled with the child labor that makes alot of their product in China and India I think my addiction to WalMart has just ended.

I have, of late, gone to supporting local businesses verses the mega stores (beit WalMart, Home Depot, or Best Buy). If I can get it at a local establishment, I do. If I have to pay a couple percent more, so be it.

When I was younger they had those commercials about how important the Made In America tags were. I think we see what the result of ignoring those ads has done to our job force, our economy, and some of our smaller businesses.

Enough. For me at least.

[hopeless277]

Isn't a one-party Republican country GREAT??? Please Mr. Walton, may I have another swift kick in the gut? Thank you, Mr. Walton.