Madawaska seeks taxes owed on auction items

MADAWASKA – Nearly six months after all the personal property of Valley Paper LLC and Paulmart Marketing Inc. was auctioned, the town has yet to see the first penny of taxes owed for personal property by the former companies.

According to Town Manager Arthur Faucher the town is owed $39,704 in personal property taxes. The taxes are for two years.

The personal property tax valuation for the two years is listed at $957,000 for 2001 and $749,620 for 2002.

The personal property involved was purchased at auction by Evergreen Trading Co. LLC of Madawaska and Acadian Paper LLC of Van Buren.

In essence, Evergreen bought the personal property formerly owned by Paulmart Marketing Inc. for about $38,000. Acadian Paper bought the personal property formerly owned by Valley Paper LLC for about $170,000.

Key Bank purchased the real estate formerly owned by the two companies for about $440,000 at last year’s auction.

Faucher said Key Bank has the buildings for sale.

The town is attempting to collect the personal property taxes from several sources. Those include the buyers at auction and Key Bank, according to the town manager.

“I’ve received the bill, and it will be taken care off,” Jeff Albert, owner of Evergreen, said Friday afternoon. “We are using the equipment we bought at the auction. We have created jobs,” he said.

“The personal property tax is not an issue. It will be taken care of,” he said.

The owners of Acadian Papers, Jodi and Wayne Morin, could not be reached at their Van Buren mill Friday.

Faucher said the notice of public sale – the document announcing the auction last year – showed that the sale of the personal property was subject to municipal taxes against the property.

“I thought the auction people were supposed to collect the personal property taxes,” Faucher said Thursday afternoon. “They did not collect them.”

Valley Paper, created in 1997, and Paulmart Marketing, created in 1999, operated a paper conversion and paper brokerage business in two buildings at the former Valley Shopping Center at Madawaska.

The owners of the two companies, Martin Nadler and Wayne Morin, parted company in 2001.

The town of Madawaska acquired ownership of the Valley Shopping Center, the former home of Ames Department Store, in 1998, and townspeople agreed to turn over the 10-acre property with 76,000 square feet of floor space to Valley Paper for $1.

Key Bank had foreclosed on Valley Paper LLC and Paulmart Marketing Inc. The personal property and real estate was sold at auction last November.

Since the auction, Key Bank has paid the town most of two years of unpaid property taxes, about $52,500. Linda Cyr, bookkeeper, tax collector and deputy treasurer of the town, said Thursday that all of the real estate taxes, except for $300, has been paid since the auction.

Cyr said it was part and parcel of the auction that the owner of property would be liable for taxes owed the town. The personal property owned by Evergreen remained in town, but equipment purchased by Acadian Paper has left town, most of it being in Van Buren where Acadian Paper is operating.

Cyr said both companies were sent bills on March 6 for the personal property they purchased. She has not received any payments.

“We can’t put a lien on personal property that is no longer in town,” Cyr said Thursday.

“If the property was still here, we could go through small claims court. The movement of the personal property should have been stopped until the taxes were paid,” she said.

On Thursday, Faucher said the town could really use the money involved in the tax situation.