How much do you pay in property taxes each year ? I know for a fact you pay more than 'the big boys' on your 3 bedroom home, than these guys do. It certainly depends on where you live, but odds are that you are paying far more than Fidelity Investment Corporation is on its enormous 340 acre customer-service operation in Fort Worth, Texas. The property tax should be $319,417 based on it's value, but Fidelity only pays $714.15
How do they get away with this? They easily save millions of dollars a year, by exploiting the state’s agricultural exemption ; which should not even apply to corporations. To qualify, one must show that your land is “used wholly or in part” for raising livestock, growing crops, or preserving wildlife. By sticking a couple bulls on their property (24 longhorn cattle to be exact) Fidelity saves hundreds of thousands in taxes. This program was originally intended to help farmers with large tracts of land and thus huge property taxes back in 1966. As you would expect to be the case, Fidelity is not alone in exploiting this law:
-Michael Dell pays $1,355 in property taxes rather than $580,780 because he keeps 100 birdhouses on his property.
-Exxon Mobile saves millions on its 3,909 acre lot in Texas by growing trees and raising cattle on part of the land. The appraised value of the property is $38 million but Exxon pays taxes on an appraisal value of $1.2 million.
-Samsung pays $135.68 on 54 acres rather than the $21,080 it used to pay after the company put up birdhouses and sprayed for red ants.
- Nokia pays $95 a year in property taxes on a 30 acre repair factory. It used to pay $85,000 before growing hay on a part of the property.
- Janice Squire, a home owner, pays nearly $9000 a year in property taxes on 3 rental homes in the same State as the above corporations.
There is only one way to look at these facts ; and that is the FACT that our government has been run by corporate interests for far too long now. They ALLOW this to happen, and ENCOURAGE it. It's killing America, as we already live in a time when the middle class man pays more than a major corporation. Kinda makes ya sick, don't it ? Remember the loop hole which allowed people to write-off hummers ? This is no different folks, there are pleanty of these out there for rich folks to take advantage of. The funny thing is -- there doesn't seem to be any advantages for the poor to middle class tax payer...
