Just think of what the neighbors will see. Having that chicken wire fence, and seeing the delivery people, hey, do you really think the delivery people go use a rest room?
Sure there will be scenes of them urinating in back of the store. That's a given
We will all need to have our cameras ready for that one. YUK!
Father of suicide victim suing Wal-Mart over sale of hunting rifle BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter
On Oct. 10, 2005, an unshaven and haggard-looking man walked into the Wal-Mart in Latham. Tired. Ripped blue-jeans. The man, Stephen Brunner, headed to the store’s firearms department, wanting to purchase a high-powered hunting rifl e. Over a friend’s objections that Brunner should not be allowed to purchase the .30-06-caliber rifl e because of his history of mental illness, a Wal-Mart salesperson sold it to him. Brunner used the gun two days later to kill himself, according to court documents. Almost two years later, Brunner’s father is now suing Wal-Mart for $1 million in federal court. Christopher Brunner of Voorheesville, acting as the administrator of his son’s estate, filed the lawsuit against the Bentonville, Ark., retailing giant in U.S. District Court in Albany. He alleges Wal-Mart should not have sold the rifl e to Stephen Brunner. Christopher Brunner alleges Wal-Mart acted negligently in selling the rifle to his son, who suffered from catatonia, delusions, psychoses and other mental infirmities, according to court documents. The retailer should have known Stephen Brunner suffered from a mental illnesses and was likely to harm himself or others, the suit states. In the year leading up to Stephen Brunner’s death, he had been confined to at least one mental health facility: Albany Medical Center’s mental health unit. To purchase the rifle, he had to fill out a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives form. He incorrectly responded in the negative to questions asking whether he had ever been adjudicated “mentally defective” and committed to a mental health institution, according to the lawsuit. He also allegedly lied when answering in the negative the question concerning drug use. He was a chronic user of marijuana and had previously been prescribed anti-depressants and other medications, the suit states. During the rifle transaction, one of Stephen Brunner’s friends, who is not identified in the suit, allegedly detailed the customer’s mental health condition and implored a salesperson to not sell or at least delay the sale of the rifl e. However, the Wal-Mart employee allegedly rebuffed the friend’s plea and said Stephen Brunner was buying the gun legally. Both Christopher Brunner and his attorney, James Towne Jr., on Monday declined to comment on the suit. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sharon Weber said she could not comment on pending litigation. Wal-Mart in April 2006 stopped selling firearms at a third of its stores — about 1,000 locations — citing a lack of demand.
I believe that Glenville has some tight regulations. Clearly a nice place to live. I have a friend who lives there that said their taxes are a bit high and that the town was controlled by Reps for decades. They were pretty much all voted out in this last election and the dems are now in control. The residents felt that he reps were overspending.
So it happens in both parties. We need to be the watch dogs for both parties and make sure they are clearly serving the people and not their own political agenda.
And we obviously need to be the watch dog for walmart too. We need to keep an eye on that fence and see if it evolves into something better than what we have witnessed up to this point.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Wal-Mart contests local property taxes Retail giant sues to cut local share of funds due school districts, towns
By DAN HIGGINS, Staff writer First published: Thursday, October 11, 2007
If Wal-Mart wins its lawsuit to lower the assessment of its Halfmoon store it would get a total $362,000 rebate on its tax bills for this year and last year. In Glenville, the company is looking for a similar break, negotiating to get its $14 million property assessment sliced to $6 million on its outlet on Dutch Meadows Lane.
In Queensbury, Wal-Mart sued to cut its $12 million assessment. The retailer settled for a reduction of a few hundred thousand dollars.
It's part of the company's strategy to systematically challenge its tax bills, a nonpartisan group called Good Jobs First said Wednesday. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank issued a study that said Wal-Mart challenges its assessments each year at 35 percent of its stores and 40 percent of its distribution centers nationwide.
Large companies frequently challenge their property tax assessments, the value on the building and land set by local governments and used to determine how much tax must be paid.
Wal-Mart attracts more scrutiny than other companies because of its size and the controversy sometimes caused when it wants to build a new store. Good Jobs First's study, "Rolling Back Property Tax Payments," said Wal-Mart is successful in its challenges about half the time, saving the retailer about $3 million per year in lowered tax bills.
Robert Hanlon, a spokesman for the Scotia-Glenville Central School District, said districts have a fund set aside to refund money to taxpayers resulting from successful assessment challenges.
But, he added, if Wal-Mart gets the huge reduction it asks for in Glenville, "We probably couldn't afford (to refund) all of that, but we do have a cushion built in."
Wal-Mart officials didn't immediately respond to queries from the Times Union. However, a spokesman told The New York Times that he hadn't read the study and wouldn't comment.
"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, Good Jobs First's research director.
Good Jobs First receives most of its funding from foundations. It receives about 3 percent of its revenue doing contract work from unions, according to Mattera. Mattera said the Wal-Mart study was funded by an anonymous donor that is not affiliated with a union or a Wal-Mart competitor.
It's common for large, commercial property owners to challenge their tax assessments, either in court or through an informal mediation process. From 1996 until 2002, challenges by the General Electric Co. to its $159 million assessment in Rotterdam cost the town $6 million, after a judge lowered the company's assessment to $122 million. GE had wanted its assessment lowered to $41 million. Higgins can be reached at 454-5523, or by e-mail at dhiggins@timesunion.com.
And this is the trick here folks. When a walmart proposes a super center in you area, they will try to make the sell by saying how much they will be paying in taxes and how it will help the community. Well, even though some other businesses try to accomplish the same thing, Walmart is notorious for NEVER paying their fair share of taxes. It is clearly a lie. Just ask Glenville if they EVER got their full assessed tax amount from Walmart.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Study Says Wal-Mart Often Fights Local Taxes By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON Published: October 10, 2007
Wal-Mart doesn’t believe just in lower prices — it believes in lower property taxes, too. The big discount chain has sought to reduce the property taxes it pays on 35 percent of its stores and 40 percent of its distribution centers, according to a report to be released today by Good Jobs First, a group that is critical of Wal-Mart.
Over all, the company wins lower taxes in half the challenges it brings, the group found. Because it had not seen the report, Wal-Mart did not wish to comment in detail, said a spokesman, John Simley.
Mr. Simley added that the study should be viewed with caution because “they are a union-funded group.” Wal-Mart has had tense relations with unions, which have criticized pay and working conditions there.
Good Jobs First said that less than 3 percent of its financing came from unions, with the bulk from foundations, including the Rockefeller and Ford foundations. The group said a donor, whom it declined to identify, paid for the tax study; the donor has no union affiliation, it said.
Both homeowners and businesses have a legal right to challenge their tax assessments, and it is commonplace for them to do so. But the Good Jobs First report questioned whether Wal-Mart was damaging public schools and other tax-supported government services with an overly aggressive strategy of pursuing reductions.
The group sampled 10 percent of the 2,833 Wal-Mart retail stores open at the start of 2005 and found that the company had challenged property taxes at 35 percent of them. The report also looked closely at Texas, where Wal-Mart challenged assessments at 83 percent of 400 stores. Good Jobs First said it looked at records of all Wal-Mart distribution centers across the country and found that lower property tax bills were sought for 40 percent of them.
At its retail stores, windowless concrete boxes that carry a low value for property-tax purposes, the company saved an average of $40,000 a store where it filed a challenge, the report found. The distribution center savings averaged $289,000 for each challenge, it said.
The report suggested that Wal-Mart saves about $3 million annually from challenging property tax bills, a small sum compared with the company’s revenue, nearly $1 billion a day.
Many cities and counties vie for Wal-Mart facilities — especially distribution centers, the huge warehouses from which the company ships goods to local stores — because they perceive an economic boost from the added jobs, even when they have to give ground on how much tax Wal-Mart will pay.
Wal-Mart, in a statement last night, said it challenged only those property tax assessments that it believed were “excessive, arbitrary or just incorrect,” and “anything that we can do to lawfully reduce our costs we pass along to customers in the form of lower prices.” The company would not specify how much it pays in property taxes, but said these taxes were a “significant” portion of $2 billion in state and local taxes it paid last year.
David E. Brunori, a professor at George Washington University and contributing editor of the journal State Tax Notes, said that any major employer was more likely than a homeowner or small business to benefit from “a bias by property tax officials who want to cut them some slack.”
Other experts said that because property tax assessments involved judgments about the value of land, buildings and equipment, there was a growing industry of challenging assessments.
Philip Mattera, who directed the study by Good Jobs First, said his researchers spoke to many local officials who said they lacked resources to fight Wal-Mart and gave tax reductions they believed were not warranted. “Other taxpayers have to pick up the slack” when Wal-Mart pays lower property taxes, he said.
Hernando County, Fla., spent more than $100,000 fighting Wal-Mart’s request to exclude sales taxes from the value of its shelving and other fixtures, said its lawyer, Gaylord Wood of Bunnell, Fla. The Florida Supreme Court last year ruled against Wal-Mart.
Mr. Wood and others said that when local officials refused Wal-Mart’s requests for lower tax bills they “suddenly find Lincoln Town Cars full of attorneys arriving at their offices.” He said the tactic made a statement about how costly it would be to resist the company.
Don R. Hurst Jr., the assessor in Johnson County, Ark., said that happened to him when Wal-Mart sought to reduce the assessment on a distribution center in Clarksville, Ark., to $23 million from $33 million, starting in 2003.
“Wal-Mart showed up with their property-tax executive, three lawyers and a couple of accountants,” Mr. Hurst said. He added that he had been acquainted with Sam Walton, the legendary founder of Wal-Mart, and “I am sure he would not approve” of trying to reduce the money “that goes for our kids’ schools.”
Wal-Mart, which is based in Arkansas, sued Mr. Hurst and lost.
That Wal-Mart would challenge the property taxes on a third of its properties did not surprise one of the outside appraisers it hires, Alexander L. Hazen. However, Mr. Hazen, president of International Appraisal Company in Upper Saddle River, N.J., said he was surprised that Wal-Mart prevailed only half the time.
Companies typically do their homework and go forward only on the best appeals, he said, so, “I am surprised that their success rate is only 45 percent on retail to 67 percent on the distribution centers. I would expect it would be higher than that.”
Some Wal-Mart stores are built in part with sales taxes that the company collects from customers but then retains, an increasingly common technique of local economic development. The company also makes widespread use of tax-exempt bonds and deals in which a local government acquires land for the company, leasing it to Wal-Mart at below-market rates.
But, he added, if Wal-Mart gets the huge reduction it asks for in Glenville, "We probably couldn't afford (to refund) all of that, but we do have a cushion built in."
Sorry here folks, and God knows that I'm not defending Walmart, but this is a legal, court issue. A 'court' decides if ANY business is being taxed fairly. So it should be up to the cities/towns to MAKE SURE that ALL assessments are correct and up to date so they don't run into this situation every time. I mean come on here people, the cities/towns must be screwing up someplace, since it is being done by ALL businesses/corporations through out the country....AND THEY WIN!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
A company is not a person...it is a THING....you must pay taxes as everyone/thing else AND---you have to keep up your property in the manner which the town/village etc you reside in......
but this is not how the law sees them.....at least around here.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
The law is the law. There are laws for every THING and every PERSON and every BUSINESS. Businesses have the right to make sure there assesement is fair. Obviously, in many cases, cities and towns take advantage of businesses. Just like Schenectady did with GE. Funny, but ya never hear of how Golub's challenge their assesement just like Walmart and the rest of the businesses. That happens all the time with Golub. Sometimes these towns and cities look at these businesses as if they have a huge flow of money that they are entitled to.
Like I said...it is done every day all over the country. And in most cases the cities or towns have not assesed businesses fairly.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Exactly shadow, but only the large businesses can afford to fight it.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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