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Multnomah County commissioners vote to set up $4 million a year Comcast fund
Sep 02, 2010 (The Oregonian - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Multnomah County commissioners voted this morning to create a fund that will grow by $4.1 million a year to pay Comcast Corp. in case the state loses a tax lawsuit involving the cable giant.
Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, filed a lawsuit in August 2009 in Oregon Tax Court against the state, challenging a property tax assessment change. That change resulted in Comcast's assessed property going from $224 million statewide to $1 billion.
In Multnomah County, that meant its Comcast tax collection went from $824,114 in the 2008-09 tax year to an additional $4.1 million in 2009-10. About a quarter of that money goes to Multnomah County government and the remainder is divvied among dozens of taxing districts.
Setting up a set-aside account in the event of a court loss was the "prudent" thing to do, Commissioner Judy Shiprack said before a unanimous vote to create the fund.
The case could take three to five years to settle and likely will be appealed by the losing side to the Oregon Supreme Court, Randy Walruff, Multnomah County director of assessment, told commissioners.
Under Oregon law, the set-aside fund is allowed only to collect the amount of money that is in dispute, Walruff said, not the interest that could accumulate.
For that reason, about $41,000 a year in anticipated interest, or nearly $500,000 a year, would also have to be paid to Comcast in the event of a loss.
But after his presentation to the commissioners, Walruff said he was confident the state would win the case, based on a recent conference call with the assistant state attorney general handling the lawsuit. Tax assessors with nine other counties affected by the Comcast lawsuit also had the opportunity to participate in the conference call, he said.
Walruff said those other counties also are expected to set up reserve funds of their own. The other counties are Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Lane, Linn, Marion, Polk, Washington and Yamhill.
An important dispute in the case is whether cable providers can be classified as communication companies, just as the state classifies companies such as Qwest, Verizon, AT&T and similar companies. Those companies, mainly associated with telephone service, have their property assessed under "central assessment," the procedure the state wants to use with cable companies.
The state contends the cable company's ability to offer telephone services means they, too, are communication companies, said Vera Carriger, valuation section manager, at the Oregon Department of Revenue.
-- Allan Brettman
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http://www.oregonian.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
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