Monday was the day property taxes came due. Those who failed to meet that deadline face a 1 percent per month penalty.
For KiOR, though, the penalty will be far greater.
Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders said this morning he called the tax collectors office and was told that as of 6:15 p.m. Monday, KiOR had not paid its taxes, a total of $1,104,038, according to Lowndes County Tax Assessor Greg Andrews.
Sanders said failing to meet the tax deadline automatically canceled the company’s fee-in-lieu agreement.
“That means they are obligated for the full taxes, which is a lot more than what they owed under the fee-in-lieu agreement,” Sanders said. “That amounts to a little more than $2 million.”
Andrews confirmed Sanders’ understanding of the arrangement.
“Harry’s right,” Andrews said. “They had two tax bills due, one for $271,872.04 and the other for $742,388.06. I haven’t calculated it yet, but if it is converted to taxes from fee-in-lieu, it would be about $2 million more than it was under the fee-in-lieu agreement.”
Sanders said KiOR’s failure to pay its taxes — which would have gone to Lowndes County, the Lowndes County School District, and the city of Columbus — could mean that KiOR could be heading for a tax sale.
“It’s the same as any other property,” Sanders said. “We could put it up for a tax sale in August. Really, we could do that any time, with 30 days notice, but usually the tax sales are held in August.”
KiOR, a Texas-based business, built a plant on The Island in 2013 that was designed to convert wood chips to fuel. The plant has not operated in more than a year. KiOR officials have said they struggled to perfect the conversion method.
Last week, a judge appointed a receiver to watch over KiOR’s Columbus biofuel refinery, as owners and creditors seek a buyer.
Lowndes County Chancery Judge Kenneth Burns named Derek Henderson, a Jackson lawyer who serves as a trustee in bankruptcy cases, as the receiver for the plant on The Island. The move came at the request of KiOR financier Vinod Khosla, who says he needs protection after his company Pasadena Investments advanced $572,904 to KiOR’s Mississippi subsidiary to continue property insurance.
Henderson is supposed to inventory the property and work to sell it, with his appointment running until Aug. 1.
While parent company KiOR Inc. of Pasadena, Texas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in November, Mississippi unit KiOR Columbus was not included. Mississippi Development Authority officials had hoped for a quick sale to recoup some of the $79 million Mississippi says KiOR Columbus owes on a loan. But Khosla has accused the state of scaring off potential buyers through aggressive courtroom moves.
Under Burns’ order, which Khosla, the state and Lowndes County agreed on, the Mississippi Development Authority will advance money to pay Henderson and other costs. The state will be first in line to get its money back, behind possibly only local taxes/fees.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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