Is North Carolina beating Wal-Mart?

As some of you may know, Wal-Mart is trying to sneak its way out of paying $30 million in North Carolina taxes. Well, taxpayers won a small (but important) victory yesterday when a Wake County judge ruled that Wal-Mart had to make public thousands of pages of documents. That means internal memos and strategy papers will come out of the shadows.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

"The company asked the judge to issue an order sealing from public view any future filings of many of the documents the company turned over to the state as part of the discovery process in the case, as well as documents the state obtained from Ernst & Young as part of a separate, related court dispute.

"North Carolina’s attorney general, opposing Wal-Mart’s effort, argued there was a public interest in maintaining public access to the documents at issue.

"In his order dated Nov. 20, filed with the court Wednesday, Emergency Special Judge of Superior Court Clarence E. Horton Jr. denied Wal-Mart’s motion. The order didn’t specify his reasons."

(Wall Street Journal via Wal-Mart Watch)

$30 million might be a drop in the bucket for Wal-Mart, but it's a lot of money for North Carolina taxpayers. It could go to roads, schools, police... any number of things. Let's make sure Wal-Mart doesn't sneak its way out of paying its fair share in taxes like the rest of us.