KARE 11 Investigates: Some wealthy developers dodge taxes for years
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KARE 11 attempted to contact Wallace and the Ramsey and Chisago County developers about their unpaid taxes. They either declined comment or did not return emails and telephone calls.
Elianne Farhat, executive director of TakeAction Minnesota, a statewide advocacy group, reviewed the KARE 11 findings at our request.
“What jumped out at me was the way rich developers were using our tax system as a public loans program,” she said.
She described the practice as “deeply disturbing” and called for changes to close such property tax loopholes.
“I mean it hurts all of us,” she said. “It hurts people who use our public schools, it hurts people who use our transit, it hurts people who use our parks and our roads. It hurts all of us and it’s wrong.”
Farhat was talking about developers such as Wallace, whose company hoped to transform a 40-acre tract of cornfield it purchased in 2004 into Commerce Hill, part of a sprawling retail and office center just south of Interstate 94 in Woodbury.
