PORT ANGELES — The method of assessing property value that caused Daishowa America Co. Ltd. to file a lawsuit against the county is widely used in all the state’s 39 counties, according to Clallam County Assessor Linda Owings-Rosenburgh.
The county receives up to 200 reassessment challenges every year, but anticipate nothing similar to the suit from Daishowa, she said.
Still, she added, many industrial companies such as Daishowa are hiring the same Seattle law firm to get their property taxes reduced.
“In the past few years more and more counties are experiencing lawsuits of this nature that are initiated by the same attorney who was employed by the (Daishowa) mill,” Owings-Rosenburgh said.
Daishowa said it had been dramatically overtaxed — and filed suit in 1999 alleging its paper mill and other properties were overassessed.
The mill’s assessment went from $51.7 million in 1988 to $123.6 million in 1998.
Then that assessment declined to $108 million in 2001.
The settlement decreased the company’s assessed valuation by $48 million, from that 2001 assessment of $108 million to $60 million for 2002.
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The rest of the story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News Clallam County edition. Click on SUBSCRIBE, above, to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.
