Richard Froese
South Peace News
Big Lakes County has denied a request from a natural gas company to waive penalties for late payment of property taxes.
At its regular meeting Nov. 27, council approved a recommendation to refuse the request from NPS Industrial Power Corp to waive the penalties for two tax roll numbers.
The penalties requested to be waived amounted to $3,226.70, Joe Zdeb, director of corporate services, told council.
South Sunset House – Gilwood Councillor Ann Stewart said council would set a bad precedence if the penalties were waived.
“If we waived it, we would get a slew of similar requests from other companies,” she said.
The total base property taxes for NPS are $43,022.68.
“NPS Industrial Power Corp. has experienced economic difficulties and has requested relief from the County in the form of waiving the penalties on their property taxes,” Zdeb said.
“NPS has provided a payment plan that would ease their base taxes for 2024 and 2025 paid by the end of 2025.”
Company chief financial officer J. Paul Lawrence says NPS is committed to pay its taxes.
“NPS has, to date, successfully negotiated full principal payment of amounts owed to vendors and believes that with the understanding of the remaining few, all parties will eventually be fully paid as commodity prices slowly increase,” Lawrence says in a letter to Big Lakes dated Oct. 22.
“During late 2023 and during 2024, NPS low commodity prices, combined with high inflation, have resulted in financial stress for the company.”