Report Charges: New Mexicans Foot Tax Bill in Corporate ‘Shell Game’
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
A new report accuses large corporations of “playing games” with New Mexico’s tax laws. It says big, multi-state companies like Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Sonic play different shell games by shifting profits or assets to subsidiaries to lower their income tax bill. According to report author Gerry Bradley with New Mexico Voices for Children, that means over $80 million in tax burden is shifted to local businesses and taxpayers.
"It’s an equity issue. We’re paying too much because Wal-Mart and K-Mart and Sonic and God only knows who are paying too little."
Most corporate tax records are confidential, but some practices have been revealed in court cases, where Wal-Mart and K-Mart have both argued they’re following the letter of the law. Bradley says other states have closed the loopholes by requiring corporations to report income from all their subsidiaries.
But Bradley notes that corporations find new loopholes to avoid paying taxes just as quickly as the state can close them. He believes the only solution is requiring what’s called “combined reporting.”
"As long as we don’t insist that they report all their profits on a combined basis, then they’ll keep thinking up different ways of avoiding the corporate income tax."
Bills that would require combined reporting in New Mexico have failed to make it out of committee in the last three legislative sessions. Commerce and industry groups said the bills failed because they amounted to a tax increase on corporations.
The report can be found online at www.nmvoices.org.
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