Mortgage defaults increase county’s uncollected taxes

The amount of unpaid property taxes in Whitman County rose to $859,413 in 2009.

That number was about $250,000 higher than the unpaid figure from 2008.

Treasurer Robert Lothspeich attributed the higher level of unpaid taxes this year to a higher level of mortgage defaults.

In total, Lothspeich’s office collected 97.46 percent of property taxes for a total of $33,003,951, according to a report submitted Monday to county commissioners by Kathy Lemon, revenue officer for the office.

In total, the county is owed $1,186,269 in unpaid taxes from prior years. Most of that is because the taxes are tied up in bankruptcies.

Lemon added the treasurer’s department refunded $39,184 in 2009 property taxes for various reasons. The bulk of the refunds were for senior citizen discounts.

Monday, commissioners wrote $4,457 off a personal property taxes bill to Great Western Communications, a Chicago-based telecommunications company.

Great Western picked up the debt when it acquired a set of transmission towers in the Lamont and Malden areas. The towers were erected by Texas-based Corban Communications, which has since sold them to several communications companies.

Corban had not paid the personal property taxes on the towers since 2005. Great Western paid taxes for 2006 through 2010, but did not pay the 2005 debt.

Lemon said she was advised by Prosecutor Denis Tracy to write off the 2005 taxes because the company had made a good faith effort to pay the taxes for the other years.