It's the Great Pumpkin, Terrence Wall

Good to see another bang-up GOP candidate get out of the gate so quickly in a statewide race...

Madison -- Wall Land Investment, LLC, one of multi-millionaire Madison developer Terrence Wall's companies, has reclassified $2 million in prime Dane County commercial real estate into "agriculture" property, which allows the company to eliminate $34,000 in local property taxes. Wall is already under criticism for using a Delaware post "office" box to possibly avoid paying Wisconsin business tax.

In 2008 Wall owed $34,000 in property taxes on the $2 million properties. Reclassifying the 2+ acres of prime commercial development, located behind the Marriott Hotel and adjacent to the West Beltline near Middleton, reduced the value to just $600. One Wisconsin Now visited the site and the only sign of agriculture was a dozen pumpkins in various stages of decomposition strewn over the two acres of valuable real estate.

More pictures here.

First the post office box in Delaware, now the shady pumpkin patch. Could someone tell this millionaire to hire a decent adviser? You know, he could at least put some effort into his agricultural enterprise. Maybe grow enough pumpkins that you can put up a stand and pay someone $8/hr. to sell them. How hard would that be?

What Wall is doing is legal. It's also the kind of crap that drives voters crazy. The electorate draws no moral distinction between tax avoidance (legal) and tax evasion (illegal). Wall may have to learn that the hard way.