Meanwhile, a study by the Minnesota Taxpayers Association released last month shows a Minnesota urban commercial property with a constant value of $1 million faced taxes that put it in 14th place nationwide in 2004--that's up from ninth in the previous study. Minnesota's $110,234 tax bill compares with $63,264 in Wisconsin for a similar-size firm and space. Comparable tax bills in other states include $25,901 in North Dakota, $70,866 in Iowa and $97,796 in South Dakota, according to the study. Minnesota continues to have the top commercial real estate taxes among those states. For the first time since the survey was begun 18 years ago, Illinois topped Minnesota's business property tax bill, at least in the Chicago area.

The organization showed that on a total basis, adding in business property taxes, corporate, sales and unemployment taxes, Minnesota's costs of about $180,000 were higher than all of the other eight states in the comparison. That was about $5,000 more than Illinois, $48,000 more than Massachusetts, $68,000 more than Wisconsin and $112,000 more than in Ohio.