The latest rumblings, relayed in Willy Week, are that maybe Nike's mysterious expansion plans -- the ones that are leading Salem to damage forever the integrity of the state's tax system -- might include a new installation in Portland's failed South Waterfront district. It's an interesting "murmur," as that publication calls such reports, but it begs a larger question: Why in heck can't Nike put its cards on the table and tell us where the expansion's going to be, before we sell them our souls?

Meanwhile, an informed reader has put to rest our concern that the Nike tax maneuver might be an attempted end run around the pending lawsuit involving the Oregon corporate tax apportionment system -- the very system that Nike wants to preserve. The reader writes:

In discussing the special session legislation you appear to misunderstand the Oregon Health Net (and the Cal. Gillette) case. It involves an element of the Multistate Tax Compact, ORS 305.655 Art. 3.1, that provides if a state has a different apportionment formula from the Compact's three-factor formula, a taxpayer may elect as between the two. Oregon began to deviate from the equally weighted three-factor formula in 1989, and the current formula applicable to all taxpayers is single sales factor. The litigation seeks to restore the election option overwritten by 1993's ORS 314.606, that's all. So, if the taxpayer prevails, rational-actor taxpayers will chose the option that results in lower taxes. Nike will still chose single sales, as will most in-state companies. So, while there may be many reasons to question the current bill, locking Nike in to the current apportionment scheme against an adverse decision in Health Net is probably not one of them.

Good to know. Thanks, reader, for the clarification -- although we'd read a little about the Health Net case, we weren't up on the details.