Refund may divide GNP estate, Inexcon

BANGOR – Great Northern Paper Inc.’s bankrupt estate and Inexcon Maine, the papermaker’s former owner, may end up fighting over which one would get the lion’s share of an estimated multimillion-dollar tax refund when overdue returns are eventually filed.

But for now, attorneys for the estate and Inexcon Maine are working cooperatively to prepare the 2002 returns, which were due in March, and to ready this year’s returns. They’ve agreed to hire one accountant to crunch the numbers and will split his fees. The estate will pay 75 percent while Inexcon Maine will pay 25 percent.

Portland lawyer Nicholas Walsh this week called the shared-accountant arrangement “a slightly interesting situation” because usually during a bankruptcy case, the parent company “wouldn’t do anything with the bankrupt estate.”

What’s at stake in Great Northern’s tax return situation is a huge chunk of change.

“In 2002, because the operating losses of Great Northern were substantial, there will be a substantial tax return – in the millions of dollars,” Walsh said.

The estate and Inexcon Maine have different interests in the outcome of the tax returns. The estate wants the money to put into a pool to pay off creditors while Inexcon Maine, still a viable business entity, wants its share to continue paying for its operations. Because Inexcon Maine has filed consolidated returns for itself and its subsidiaries since 1999, consolidated returns will be filed again for 2002 and 2003.

Daniel Amory, a New York City lawyer representing the trustee, said during a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing last week that he believes the bankrupt estate “would get a larger portion” of the refund for the benefit of Great Northern’s creditors.

Great Northern’s primary creditor, Boeing Capital Corp., likely would be the recipient of any tax refund deposited into the bankrupt estate. Boeing, which received most of the $63 million in cash paid by Brascan Corp. of Toronto when it purchased Great Northern in April, still is owed between $10 million and $13 million.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Louis H. Kornreich last week agreed to let the attorneys proceed with their plan to file the tax returns even though he knows the plan could blow up and that he could end up settling any disputes, including how the tax refund is divvied up.

“There is a great potential for a difference of opinion between Inexcon and the trustee on the filing of the tax return,” Kornreich said. “There may be a dispute on a factual basis. If not, there may be a dispute on calculations.”

Besides a possible dispute over the allocation of the tax refund, the attorneys admitted during last week’s court hearing that they might end up disagreeing on how their shared accountant prepares the returns. The attorneys said they may hire their own accountants to go over the returns if they believe different calculations of the numbers would result in more money either for the estate or for Inexcon Maine.

Walsh acknowledged that Inexcon Maine would sign the returns and mail them in as required under the Internal Revenue Service code. That is, he said, “unless we have a material problem with the way they’re prepared.”