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July 09, 2004 at 08:00 PM
NU Online News Service, July 9, 2004, 1:48 p.m. EDT
WellPoint Health Networks Inc., Thousand Oaks, Calif., says it is paying plenty of state taxes in California.[@@]
The Foundation for Taxpayer & Consumer Rights, Santa Monica, Calif., a critic of WellPoint’s efforts to merge with Anthem Inc., Indianapolis, has argued that WellPoint, the for-profit parent of Blue Cross of California, has benefited from special tax breaks and might owe the state $106 million in 2003 gross premium taxes.
“Blue Cross is not exempted from any state taxes that other insurers and health care service plans pay in California,” Thomas Geiser, WellPoint’s general counsel, writes in a letter sent to state Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, a lawmaker who has been working with the foundation on the merger issue.
California Blue converted to for-profit status in 1996 and has been paying all of the taxes required of any for-profit insurer ever since, Geiser writes in the letter.
