Cary Spivak

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Diane Hendricks is not the only state billionaire who sometimes ends a year without having to pay a nickel in state income taxes.

Two members of the family that owns S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. — the Racine company that brings in about $10 billion annually through the sale of Windex, Raid and other well-known household products — also have had years in which they paid no Wisconsin income taxes, records show.

Helen Johnson-Leipold, the great-great-granddaughter of the company founder, didn't pay a dime in state income taxes four times in seven years. Johnson-Leipold is chairman of Johnson Bank and chief executive officer of Johnson Outdoors Inc., a public company that paid her $1.85 million last year.

Chris Abele hasn't owed state income taxes for 14 years

Her brother, H. Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of S.C. Johnson, pays no Wisconsin income taxes even though he works out of the company's Racine headquarters and owns a home in the area. As an Illinois resident, he pays taxes in that state, said Kelly Semrau, a spokeswoman. The distinction may earn him a significant tax break, since the top income tax rate in Illinois is 3.75%. Wisconsin's top rate is 7.65%.

Semrau said Johnson lives in Chicago because his divorce/custody settlement requires that he live within five miles of his daughter's high school.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviewed state records showing the amount of net income taxes paid by the nine Wisconsin billionaires on the 2015 Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans. Four members of the Johnson family made the list — each with an estimated 2015 net worth $3.2 billion.

All those billionaires — with the exception of Hendricks and the two Johnsons — paid income taxes annually from 2013 through 2015, or have not yet filed their 2015 returns.

John Menard, founder of the Eau Claire retailing giant that bears his name, paid the most when he coughed up $35.7 million in 2013. Because of his company's tax structure, it is impossible to determine how much of that covered his company's tax bill and how much was for John Menard's personal tax obligation.

Forbes estimated Menard's 2015 net worth at $9.2 billion, making him the richest person in the state

Hendricks' String Ends

Hendricks, the richest woman in the state and a vice chair of a key fundraising committee for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, did not pay any state income taxes from 2012 through 2014. Hendricks, who owns Beloit's ABC Supply Co. — the nation's largest supplier of roofing — also paid zero taxes in 2010.

She has a net worth of nearly $5 billion, according to Forbes, which last month dubbed her America's richest self-made woman.

Hendricks' string of goose eggs ended last year when she paid $7.6 million in state income tax, said Scott Bianchini, ABC Supply's tax director. The company changed its corporate and tax structure last year, so that large tax bill is likely for the company tax obligation as well as her personal tab.

Bianchini noted that Hendricks and ABC had "collectively paid hundreds of millions of dollars in federal and state income taxes."

"It makes me sad to hear people who have never met or spoke to her infer she has done something improper on her tax return," Bianchini said in a statement. "It's sad because it's simply not true."

Writing Off Losses

Chuck Konkol, a CPA who teaches accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said that while many people don't like seeing the mega-rich pay no income tax, their ire should be focused on lawmakers.

"If the policy-makers are giving them those loopholes ... I don't blame the taxpayers for taking advantage of them," Konkol said.

Johnson-Leipold appears to have taken advantage of the tax break that allows people to write off investment losses. She paid zero taxes in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013.

"There were some years where my investments experienced losses which are allowed as a deduction on my individual income tax return," Leipold said in a statement issued through a family spokesman. "As is clear from the substantial state taxes I have paid in more recent years, any tax offsets have been exhausted."

She paid $1.14 million in 2011, $192,615 in 2014 and $1.6 million last year, records show.