Appeals court: State can keep a lid on tax credit details
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Court of Appeals has rejected an effort to cast light on significant state tax credits granted to General Motors by the state.
Detroit activist David Sole “presented forceful arguments” about the public importance of the information, but “we are constrained to follow the law,” the appeals court said in a 3-0 opinion last week.
The court said state law allows the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to withhold certain information about tax credits when presented with a public records request.
Some information was publicly released in January in an unrelated action while the appeal was pending. The value of GM’s maximum credit was cut by $325 million to approximately $2.28 billion through 2029, and will be capped annually at an unspecified amount, officials said.
In return, the company must meet certain job targets.
Sole’s attorney, Jerome Goldberg, said a favorable opinion from the appeals court could have opened the door to learning about tax credits extended to other businesses.
“People have a right to know about it. That’s why we think it’s important,” Goldberg said.
Kimble Center for Legal Drafting releases its first public document
The Kimble Center for Legal Drafting at WMU-Cooley Law School has released its first public document—a medical power of attorney.
The full form is available for download on the center’s website.
The document has been 18 months in the making and went through more than 50 drafts. It was reviewed by experienced elder-law attorneys, doctors, and the center’s international board of advisers, whose members are experts in plain language, forms and website design, and user testing. The form has received the WriteMark Plain-Language Standard from Write Limited, based in New Zealand.
The next step will be testing with actual users at Michigan State University’s department of Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting. “Although it would have been preferable to wait until after testing to make the form available,” said the center’s senior director, Distinguished Professor Emeritus Joseph Kimble, “current circumstances created a more immediate need. Everybody should have a medical power of attorney.”
The center’s goal is to make it readily available and easy to use — and improve it if need be as time goes on.
The center is partnering with Michigan Legal Help, which offers an array of helpful information and forms on its website, now including this medical power of attorney.
The center was created by WMU-Cooley Law School in 2018. It was named after Professor Kimble, who taught legal writing and drafting at the school for more than 30 years. Professor Mark Cooney is the executive director.
The center has a public-service mission: produce high-quality, user-friendly documents and make them available on its website, and occasionally offer free writing and drafting seminars for lawyers, paralegals, and law students.
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