You know how conservatives always blame Wisconsin’s high corporate tax rate for failing businesses?
It’s a crock.
The latest example is Mercury Marine, which threatened to leave Fond du Lac and move its operations to Oklahoma unless workers agreed to big concessions. The workers finally did, under pressure. And taxpayers kicked in to keep the company in town. Fond du Lac County provided a $50 million low-interest publicly financed loan, to be paid for by a countywide half-cent sales tax increase. (Isn’t that socialism?) And the city and state have also contributed as well, all to keep Mercury Marine in Wisconsin.
So while the taxpayers and union did their part to keep Mercury in Wisconsin, it turns out that Mercury has done nothing to contribute to Wisconsin’s coffers.
Thanks to the folks at Institute for Wisconsin’s Future, which just released a report on the Mercury Marine meltdown, we now know that Mercury and its corporate parent, Brunswick Corp., did not pay any Wisconsin income tax from 2000 through 2007. Brunswick failed to pay taxes in Wisconsin even though it had been profitable during 2001-2007.
“The facts of Brunswick’s tax situation clearly show that Wisconsin revenue policies were irrelevant to the Mercury Marine showdown,” IWF’s report concludes. “Brunswick itself did not cite Wisconsin taxes as a factor in its maneuvers.”
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So much for Wisconsin being a “tax hell.”
IWF’s report also details how much money the folks at the top of the corporation were making while their company melted down and their workers had to take wage cuts.
“The only ones protected from loss have been the decision-makers at the very top of the Brunswick hierarchy,” the report states. CEO [Dustan] McCoy collected over $10 million between 2006 and 2008 and his five board members who received an average of $342,737 each during this same time period.”
Read the IWF’s “The Twisted Saga of Mercury Marine” for more details.
