Taylor receives refund from county tax collector

By Lisa Majors-Duff

Making it right in a case involving U.S. Congressman Charles Taylor meant returning a little more than $1,500 they'd billed incorrectly.

Tax assessor Cecil Dills said an employee in his office caught the billing mistake, which came about when more than 628 acres owned by the congressman were reclassified and removed from tax deferred statutes under forest land requirements in 1998. With the deferment classification removed, state statues then allowed the tax collector to require full payment from the previous three years, resulting in an $18,000 tax bill, which was sent to Taylor last year.

The problem with the bill, Dills said, is that it did not take into account that a portion of the deferred taxes had been paid when Taylor's partner, Jay Dover Gillespie, deeded his interest in the property to Taylor two years ago.

"We gave Taylor his refund in the same timely manner we would have anyone else who pays their taxes," Jackson County Manager Jay Denton said Monday.

Jackson County's tax collector garnished Taylor's congressional salary in June in an effort to collect back taxes on six tracts in his name or that of his company, Transylvania Tree Farms. But before the funds arrived from Washington, D.C., Taylor, who declares his worth to be up to $57 million, paid the bill "under protest." Since that time the congressman has attempted to have the total amount refunded by having his attorney appear before the Board of Equalization and Review to plead his case.

After his appeal to that board was denied this summer, Taylor filed another appeal to the Property Tax Commission in Raleigh. It could be next year before that appeal is heard, Dills said.

Dills's decision to remove Taylor's property from forest use tax deferment followed numerous requests from the tax assessor's office for the congressman to update his forest management plan and application.

"We feel we went the extra mile," Dills said in May.

Speaking for Taylor, Asheville attorney Bob Long said Dills' requests of the congressman are not in step with state statutory requirements dealing with land use deferments.

"...there is no requirement in the General Statutes of North Carolina that a written management plan regarding forest land for present-use value be filed, but rather said General Statutes only require that the forest land property be 'under a program of sound management,'" Long wrote in his request to be heard before the Board of Equalization and Review.

Under the direction of the board of commissioners, tax collector Beverly Buchanan started this spring collecting back taxes by garnishing the wages and attaching the bank accounts of those in arrears. Since that time, her office has collected more than $395,000 in delinquent taxes, Buchanan reported earlier this month.

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