Lawmaker Seeks to End Production Plant Property Tax

By: E&P Staff Calling newspapers "an indispensable cog in the health of our public affairs," and citing the loss of thousands of newspaper jobs nationally, a Wisconsin state representative seeks co-sponsors for a bill exempting newspaper production buildings from taxes.

Production equipment already is exempt, and no estimate of the cost of the proposed measure was offered.

"As much as I, as a public figure, dislike some of the things the press does, that has nothing do with the loss of what newspapers mean to society," Marlin Schneider yesterday told Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune reporter Nathaniel Shuda.

Agreeing to co-sponsor the bill, representative Amy Sue Vruwink said that without newspapers, "people won't be able to know what's going on in government."

But Wisconsin Newspaper Association Executive Director Peter Fox said "newspapers aren't looking for any special privilege that would put them above other parts of the Wisconsin business community."