Delta County treasurer Jim Ventrello is approaching the annual tax lien sale scheduled for Thursday with a sense of extra caution this year.

As of Monday, the county was going to sale with 250 unpaid real property tax schedules.

That compares with 142 real property schedules that were sold last year. Gunnison County’s sale ended with $300,000 worth of real property tax schedules left unsold on the Oct. 22 sale day, which has raised the concern of investor interest.

An even bigger concern is that Delta County’s largest single property taxpayer, Bowie Resources, has over $1.5 million in property taxes that are overdue and unpaid this year.

According to Ventrello, Bowie Mine has experienced production problems underground, and the company has been wrestling with financial issues on the corporate level at Kentucky headquarters that have affected the local mine’s financial position. The coal industry also has suffered economic setbacks on a national scale.

In Colorado, businesses like Bowie that provide high paying local jobs are heavily taxed. They are assessed at the 29 percent rate. They pay sales taxes on the expensive, specialized equipment they buy. They pay property taxes on that equipment every year. They are also taxed on the coal they dig from taxed ground with that same twice-taxed equipment.

Ventrello said the county has been working with Bowie officials who had promised the taxes would be paid by now. “But, that plan hasn’t worked out for them,” Ventrello said. “They had told us they were trying to do some refinancing on the corporate level.”

So with the consent of the county commissioners, Bowie’s delinquent tax bills were left off of the published county delinquency list this year in order, Ventrello said, to keep from hurting the company’s chances at its refinancing deal.

Now, Ventrello says, it appears that he will have to schedule a special tax sale for Bowie’s unpaid tax schedules on Dec. 11. State law specifies that the county’s tax lien sales have to be concluded by Dec. 14. Ventrello added, “We’ve given them as much time as we could under state statute.”

The company made a $200,000 payment in mid October towards the 43 different property tax schedules listed for Bowie Acquisition Group LLC and Bowie Resources. That money cleared an individual $138,000 tax schedule and some interest penalties that had accumulated.

But three other big tax schedules totaling over $1.4 million, plus other smaller bills and accumulated interest leaves the company still about $1.5 million due as of Monday this week, Ventrello confirmed.

A Bowie official at the mine declined to comment.

Ventrello said that it appeared unlikely the company would have the taxes cleared this week as hoped.

The county treasurer isn’t convinced that a local investor, or any investor, will be found to buy the $520,876, plus $15,626 interest, for tax on Bowie’s production. Another unpaid schedule for real estate totals $153,820, plus $4,614 interest charges.

The biggest unpaid schedule of $773,273 plus $23,198 interest for personal property owned by the mine won’t go to a tax sale, Ventrello explained. A payment plan will be worked out for that bill, or a destraint order will be placed on the mine’s equipment to keep it from being moved.

So the county’s real hope now as it goes through the statutory process with Bowie’s unpaid taxes is that the company will get its refinancing deal completed and just pay off its local tax liability.

The county may continue to worry about Bowie’s taxes for time to come. But in Gunnison County where the $300,000 in tax liens went unsold, there was a happy end to the story.

Melody Marks, Gunnison county treasurer, said that only $1.2 million of their $1.5 million in tax liens sold on Oct 22. There were a total 545 schedules up for sale.

But, on the following day investors came into the office and began buying the leftover liens. “I guess they went and cashed in their CDs,” she said. As of last week, $35,000 in unpaid taxes were still outstanding.

The Gunnison County sale was followed a week later On Oct. 29 by a “very successful” tax lien sale in Montrose County, reported County Treasurer Rosemary Murphy. The county had 451 real property tax liens up for sale and all sold. There were 113 investors bidding for the liens.

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Special treatment
written by sirrusrider , November 06, 2009

I am concerned that elected officials, behind closed doors, decided to provide special treatment to an entity because they are one of the largest tax payers in the county.

It is one thing for the treasurer to negotiate with the company for payment. It is quite another for the commissioners, in a closed meeting in violation of the open meeting laws, to make a decision to withhold public information. You can be sure there weren't too many people on the delinquent tax list who wanted their tax status made public.

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What Else?
written by DeltaDude , November 06, 2009

Who's minding the store on the environmental front? Companies in this situation often leave an environmental mess for someone (tax payers) else to clean up. Hopefully, this is not the situation here.

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