By the numbers:
$1.29 million — The amount of money owed by the top five delinquent taxpayers in Clark County
$124,369 — The amount of money owed by taxpayers in real estate tax in 2016.
$123.5 million — The estimated amount collected by the Clark County Treasurer’s office by July, 2016.
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Breakdown of the top five delinquent taxpayers
1. Twin Creeks Subdivision LLC
0 Sigler Road, New Carlisle, the back part of the now-defunct housing development.
Amount owed: $792,579
2. Michael Morgan
26 properties, including a former manufacturing plant at 4949 S. Pitchin Road in Green Twp., and several rental properties, commercial buildings and vacant lots
Amount owed: $158,072
3. Euclids Elements
Six parcels, including a former manufacturing plant at 504 W. Euclid Ave., and vacant lots in Springfield
Amount owed: $136,068
4. Denney, John Elbert Sr & Lucille Dozier
Seven parcels, including 18 S. Light St., mostly rental properties and vacant lots in Springfield
Amount owed: $124,369
5. Diversified Solutions LLC
Four parcels with multiple homes in Enon, including 75 Bob White Drive
Amount owed: $84,913
Clark County’s top five highest delinquent real estate taxpayers owe more than $1 million dollars — and more than $792,000 of the debt is owed on a single parcel of land at the troubled Twin Creeks Subdivision in New Carlisle.
The subdivision once featured many parcels of land and was supposed to introduce new housing to the area, but the developer died and the project failed.
Twin Creeks Subdivision LLC owns that property, according to treasurer’s records.
The city of New Carlisle ended up with several parcels from the defunct subdivision after it co-signed the bond for the project and has since been working to sell the land. New Carlisle City Manager Randy Bridge said the city is completing a sale of 27 parcels, but the piece with the more than $792,000 owed in back taxes isn’t one of them.
“It is pending litigation with the city,” Bridge said of the parcel with the back taxes.
Clark County Treasurer Steve Metzger said the parcel of land with the hefty debt is on the backside of the property. Bridge described the area as 92 acres north of the parcels about to be sold.
Metzger said his office has been unable to collect taxes on the property because of the many court filings and legal battles over the last several years regarding Twin Creeks Subdivision LLC.
“It’s a dispute between lien holders, owners, family and trusts,” Metzger said. “They have kind of battled on this for six or eight years and have been in and out of case. And our actions have just kind of sat here.”
The other four taxpayers who made the list for biggest tax debts in Clark County own multiple parcels of land in the county. They are:
•Michael Morgan, 26 parcels in Springfield with more than $158,000 in unpaid taxes. Eight of those parcels are part of a county tax foreclosure process and other parcels are eligible for delinquent certification in December, according to Clark County Treasurer records. Most of the properties
•Euclids Elements, six parcels in Springfield with more than $136,000 in back taxes. Clark County treasurer’s records indicate the properties are pending foreclosure.
•Denney, John Elbert Sr. and Lucille Dozier, seven parcels in Springfield with more than $124,000 in tax debt. The properties have appeared on the list before and are eligible for an auditor’s sale, according to treasurer records.
•Diversified Solutions LLC, four parcels in Enon with more than $84,000 of unpaid property taxes. Three of the parcels are in bankruptcy or are part of a county tax foreclosure process, according to treasurer’s records.
Clark County treasurer records show Diversified Solutions filed bankruptcy on three parcels, which will stop foreclosure action.
The newspaper was unsuccessful in contacting all of the debtors on the list, despite multiple attempts.
Clark County Treasurer Steve Metzger said his office continues to work to make sure the taxes on the properties are resolved in a timely matter. On each of the top five properties, legal action has been taken.
Property taxes are important to public entities and essential for his office to collect, he said.
“(A lot) of (the tax money) goes to the schools and that’s the biggest reason,” Metzger said. “We try to hit their projections every years.”
The top five delinquent tax payers aren’t alone when it comes to being delinquent. New taxpayers fall behind every year, Metzger said, and the county works hard to collect the money owed while being fair.
It can be harder to collect some cases than others due to circumstances, attitudes and availability, he said.
“Some cases is just a matter of it being a business decision,” Metzger said of not paying the taxes owed. “We have really good taxpayers, but some of them just can’t or don’t want to pay taxes.”
The county total tax collection should be more than $124 million in 2016. The county collected more than $123 million but said some taxpayers may be on payment plans that would explain the missing money.
The county is willing to work with taxpayers to make sure they can eventually pay their taxes in full, he said.
“We kind of promote that because we are not here to take houses,” Metzger said. “We want people to be able to pay their taxes.”
Taxpayers who fall behind on their payments get ample time to catch up before they are deemed delinquent, he said, and even more time before the county considers a tax foreclosure.
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