Goodrich Corp., the Charlotte, N.C.-based company that makes carbon aircraft brakes at a nine-year-old plant on the West Plains, has won a big reduction in the personal-property taxes it pays on the expensive equipment at the plant.


The company has stipulated to a revised finding by the Spokane County Assessors Office that the plants equipment should be valued for tax purposes at about $28.7 million. Thats about halfway between the $36.8 million value the assessors office originally placed on that equipment for 2007 taxes and the $18 million value the company had contended was more accurate.


Based on a levy rate of $11.40 per $1,000 of valuation in the tax code area where the plant is located, the $28.7 million agreed-upon value translates into a 2007 personal-property tax bill of a little over $327,000. At the value figure that the assessors office originally sought to impose, that bill would have been more than $419,000.


Laurie Tardif, Goodrichs Charlotte-based media relations manager, says, We just wanted to be classified properly and assessed appropriately, and we believe that has taken place now.


Assessors Office Appraisal Supervisor Byron Hodgson says hes pleased with the outcome and that the matter has been resolved.


Goodrich won a stunning appeal last September when the Spokane County Board of Equalization agreed unanimously with Goodrichs $18 million estimated value for the equipment. The assessors office then appealed that ruling to the Washington State Board of Tax Appeals.


The board dismissed that appeal last month, though, after the assessors office notified it that Goodrich had agreed to the sharply reduced taxable value for the equipment. Hodgson says the assessors office issued that new valuation after representatives from its office and the Washington state Department of Revenue (DOR) met with Goodrich officials, toured the West Plains plant, and the DOR decided to have the county use a different depreciation schedule to value the equipment there.


To ensure statewide uniformity, the DOR develops the schedules used for valuing personal property, and county assessors offices then apply those schedules. Most personal property owned by individuals is exempt from property taxes, but businesses and farmers pay personal-property taxes on movable items such as machinery, equipment, furniture, and supplies. Those items are taxed at the same levy rate as real property, which includes structures, land, improvements to land, and certain affixed equipment.


Ironically, county Assessor Ralph Baker has said in published guest columns that he considers the states personal-property tax detrimental to business vitality and would like to see it abolished. Getting rid of the tax wouldnt have a major financial impact, he contends, because personal property represents a small portion of a countys overall taxable value, and taxes on real property could be adjusted to make up the difference.


Goodrich had argued at the Board of Equalization hearing last fall that the value figure reached by the assessors office didnt reflect accurately the depreciation of the equipment the company uses, nor how quickly that equipment becomes obsolete in the fast-evolving industry.


The assessors office said, though, that in arriving at its original figure, it simply applied DOR schedules and incorporated additional information it gleaned from a 2006 DOR audit of Goodrichs operation here. In an interview last fall, Hodgson said, The assessors office does have a certain amount of judgment in applying the schedules, but for the most part they are straightforward and we are just administering the program.


Businesses provide the assessors office with lists of their assets, he said, and we apply the schedule to those listings, and that produces the value.


One of the reasons the county and state had such a difficult time arriving at a value for the Goodrich plants equipment, Hodgson says, was that the plant is unique in what it does and what it produces, making it difficult to categorize.


Goodrich opened the 150,000-square-foot plant at 11135 W. Westbow Lane in 1999. It employed 145 people here as of last spring, according to information supplied to the Journal of Business for a list of leading Spokane manufacturers.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at kimc@spokanejournal.com.