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“A COURT SHOULD NOT EFFECTIVELY OVERRIDE AN ENACTED TAX STATUTE BY IMPOSING THE COURT’S VIEWS OF ECONOMIC POLICY OR OF THE WISDOM OF A TAX LAW,” THE CHIEF JUSTICE WROTE.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Already Collecting Dividends from Buying the State Supreme Court
Ziegler, Van Hollen and WMC deliver huge tax bill

B Y L I S A K A I S E R

The state Supreme Court,state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and the big business lobby Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) handed Wisconsin residents a $350 million tax hike—and gave corpora tions a new tax break.

Four justices on the state Supreme Court—Patrick Crooks, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler, who wrote the majority opinion—ruled last week in favor of Menasha Corp. in a sales tax case. The court ruled that Menasha did not have to pay $265,093 in sales or use taxes on computer software worth $5.2 million.

That figure could turn into a budget-bust ing $350 million as state corporations ask for tax rebates. State taxpayers will have to pick up the tab. The ruling represents a triumph for WMC, which was instrumental in electing Ziegler to the state Supreme Court and Van Hollen to the position of state attorney general. WMC spent $2 million on negative ads attacking Ziegler’s opponent in 2007, $2.5 million on ads attacking Van Hollen’s oppo nent in 2006 and helped Menasha argue its appeals. WMC had made the Menasha decision a “priority issue,” even though its campaign ads attacked big business oppo nents for being soft on crime and bad for Wisconsin.

So WMC was a well-known ally to both the prosecution and the defense (Van

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