MADISON, WI (WTAQ) - A tax expert says Wisconsin legislators are to blame for the fact that the state’s richest woman did not pay any state income taxes in 2010.

Todd Berry of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance says Diane Hendricks and other wealthy residents should not be blamed for taking what the politicians give them.

Berry said both political parties have used the tax laws as, “a Christmas tree to hang all sorts of things on.” And he said strange situations are created when lawmakers “choose to create all sorts of deductions, credits, and exclusions to state tax law.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on Hendricks’ situation Thursday. She became the owner of Beloit’s ABC Supply company after her husband Kenneth died in 2007.

The paper said she paid at least $1 million in state taxes in 4 of the 5 years before 2010. But a company official said Hendricks stopped assuming ABC’s profits and taxes on her personal returns – and the ABC wholesale building supply giant started paying its own taxes.

Company tax official Scott Bianchini said the firm’s tax obligation grew last year to over a million dollars, and Hendricks herself paid a substantial amount – but he wouldn’t say how much. He said Hendricks and her late husband have both paid millions in taxes in all states where ABC Supply does business.

The spotlight on Hendricks grew after she gave a half-million dollars to Governor Scott Walker’s recall election campaign, and a video was released in which Walker told her the state needed to “divide and conquer” to rein in public unions before a right-to-work bill could be considered.