HANCOCK COUNTY — Officials have hit the brakes on an auto parts manufacturer’s tax break after the company didn’t pay taxes owed on its equipment last year.
Spectra Premium, based in Quebec, Canada, operates a warehouse of about 250,000 square feet on the north side of County Road 300N east of Mt. Comfort Road. The company announced in early March 2020 that it was seeking protection to provide time to restructure its operations and debt.
According to information from the Hancock County auditor’s office, Spectra Premium did not pay 2019 taxes due in 2020 for personal property. It did pay its $11,055.16 spring installment this year, however. But its delinquent tax and penalty leaves the company with a balance of $17,675.44, not including what’s due in the fall.
“Unfortunately a fair portion of that is fines and delinquency fees and costs that are charged against them for not paying on time,” said Hancock County Council member Mary Noe at a council meeting earlier this month, during which the council voted unanimously to revoke Spectra Premium’s tax abatement.
Pascale Lagacé, project leader for communication and advertising with Spectra Premium, told the Daily Reporter in an email that the company wasn’t able to pay its Hancock County taxes that year because of its Chapter 15 bankruptcy filing. He added a court order states all debt to creditors before March 10, 2020 are on a stay pattern.
“Only a judge or a court appointed monitor can allow a payment of a critical nature,” Lagacé said.
Hancock County Treasurer Jane Klemme told the Daily Reporter in an email that her office filed a proof of claim against Spectra Premium in the amount of $12,025.80 for 2019 taxes payable in 2020. A proof of claim is used by creditors to indicate the amount of debt owed by a debtor when they file for bankruptcy.
Indiana Becknell Investors 2011 owns the building Spectra Premium operates in, and its taxes are current.
Spectra Premium had a decade-long tax abatement on equipment it’s added for its Hancock County operation, various components of which were in years three, four, five, six and seven out of 10. According to paperwork filed with the county, the equipment includes storage racking throughout the building along with information technology and communication equipment. Taxes on the equipment are fully abated in their first year, and the liability phases in gradually over the years that follow.
Companies have to turn in compliance paperwork on their tax abatements every year for the Hancock County Council to consider when determining whether to continue the breaks. Spectra Premium turned in its paperwork late last year, and the county informed the company that it needed to go before the council for a waiver of non-compliance in order to have an opportunity to keep the abatement, but it never did.
The company filed its paperwork on time this year, however.
Randy Sorrell, executive director of the Hancock Economic Development Council, said at the county council meeting that Spectra Premium is still in business in the county, adding the warehouse typically runs 225 to 250 employees and that when he checked in a couple months ago, it was down to about 80.
Spectra Premium broke ground on a facility of more than 500,000 square feet on the north side of County Road 200N west of 700W in Alliance Interstate Park in 2019. The company’s lease for the building was rejected in bankruptcy court, however, and Amazon moved into the site. (Amazon also operates a fulfillment center off County Road 300N east of 500W.)
Of Hancock County’s 31 active tax abatements, Spectra Premium’s was the only one to be revoked. Tsuda USA, an auto parts manufacturer with a location just across 300N from Amazon’s fulfillment center, filed its compliance paperwork for its personal property abatements late. The county council plans to consider waiving that non-compliance in August, when the company is due back for the final vote on a new tax break it’s seeking. That abatement is for a $22 million investment in new equipment for making hybrid transmission shafts for Toyota. The project is slated to begin in late 2023 and is expected to add 24 employees to its current roster of about 150.
