|
|
|
|
Pending tax sale looms at Kane industrial site |
|
Written by Publisher
|
|
Wednesday, 01 July 2009 |
Photo by Ted Lutz
Shedio Logging and Lumber of Slippery Rock is seeking relief for 2007 taxes on its property – the 14.42-acre site of the former Kane Handle plant on the south side of Biddle Street near Route 321. Family members who attended a recent meeting of the Kane School Board include Susan, center, and John Shedio, right, and their son Ryan, left.
By Ted Lutz
Republican Staff
A September tax sale is pending at the former Kane Handle plant property in Kane.
Shedio Logging and Lumber of Slippery Rock purchased the 14.42-acre site on Oct. 26, 2006, for $70,000. The Kane Handle plant on the site closed more than three years before this sale. However, the property at the time of the sale still carried an assessment of $495,800 – the figure placed on the plant during re–valuation in 1998.
John and Susan Shedio filed an appeal to reduce the assessment from $495,800 to their purchase price of $70,000. But the appeal, filed March 1, 2007, came too late to change the 2007 property tax bills, according to Angelia Tennies, chief assessor for McKean County.
As a result, Shedio apparently has the obligation to pay 2007 taxes based on the former assessment of $495,800.
The balance owed is $14,780, according to Kathy Roche, director of the county Tax Claim Bureau.
If this amount is not paid, the former Kane Handle site owned by Shedio will be subject to a Sept. 14 tax sale at the county courthouse in Smethport, Roche said.
Shedio purchased the property as a Kane area staging site for its logging business. John Shedio said the company "invested in Kane" and even had plans to operate a sawmill at the site. A downturn in the timber industry has temporarily put this plan on hold, he said.
Because the filing of the appeal came in March 2007, Tennies said the request for a reduction was considered by the county in September 2007. The appeal was granted and the assessment was lowered from $495,800 to $70,000 beginning with 2008 taxes.
Tennies said a request to reduce the assessment for 2007 is "out of my hands" because the appeal came more than four months after the sale and well after the September 2006 appeal hearing date. She said the county may have considered an "administrative appeal" if the request for an assessment adjustment was filed within a month of the property sale.
Unable to have the county change the assessment for 2007 taxes, the Shedios have asked the Kane School Board and Kane Borough Council to take action to give them tax relief for that year. The school district is asked for tax relief totaling more than $6,000. The borough tax relief would be nearly $3,000. The county tax relief would be more than $3,600.
So far, the school board and borough council have declined to approve the tax relief for the Shedios.
Speaking at a June meeting of the school board, Susan Shedio said "miscommunication" left the property assessment at $495,800 for 2007 taxes even though the fair market value, based on the sales price, was only $70,000.
She said "it really isn't fair" for Shedio Logging to pay taxes on property assessed at $495,800 when the company paid only $70,000 for the site in 2006.
John Shedio said the company couldn't appeal the assessment figure "until we owned the property ourselves." That's why the appeal was heard and approved in 2007 rather than in 2006 – the year of the purchase.
The Shedios pointed out that the company currently is up-to-date on its property tax obligations based on the $70,000 assessment approved in 2007.
John Shedio said the timber industry is undergoing "a real challenge" due to dismal economic conditions and is "looking for help" in reducing its outstanding 2007 tax bills based on the previous assessment.
"These are tough times," Shedio said. "This is a serious situation for us."
Ed Kocjancic Jr., a school board member who has his own timber business in Kane, agreed with Shedio about the state of the timber industry.
"I've never seen the timber industry in this bad as shape," he said.
|
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 30 July 2009 )
|
|
|
|
