$14M awarded in settlement

The Tri-parishes will receive a combined total of more than $14 million as their part of a $68.8 million settlement of a long-running dispute between three natural gas pipeline companies and 52 Louisiana parish tax assessors.

The three companies – ANR Pipeline, Southern Natural Gas Co., and Tennessee Gas Pipeline – had paid about $14.6 million to Lafourche, Terrebonne and St. Mary parishes under protest and will divide a settlement refund of $456,000.

The breakdown shows that Lafourche will receive roughly $2.4 million. The companies paid $2.5 million under protest and will receive a refund of $78,000.

Terrebonne will receive $7.2 million, the second-highest amount of the 52 parishes. The companies will receive a refund of $252,000 of the $7.4 million paid under protest.

St. Mary will receive the fourth-highest payment, $4.6 million. The companies’ protested-St. Mary payment was $4.7 million and they will receive a refund of $125,000.

Altogether, the companies paid about $72.3 million under protest and will receive $3.5 million, or about 5 percent, of that amount under terms of the settlement. The money paid under protest to the parishes has been held in escrow while the dispute made its way through the courts.

The amount in question involves the tax years 2004 through 2010, but the dispute actually began between the pipeline companies and local assessors 10 years earlier.

In October 2011, a settlement was reached for disputed tax assessments from 1994 through 2003 but the pipeline companies continued to protest assessments from 2004 through 2010.

The pipeline companies filed a spate of suits against the Louisiana Tax Commission in 1994. The suits were consolidated into a single action in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge. In their suits, the companies claimed they were treated unfairly because they were charged higher property taxes than in-state companies.

Out-of-state companies are assessed at 25 percent of fair market value while in-state pipelines are assessed at 15 percent. Out-of-state companies are assessed at the higher rate because they are considered public service properties.

Cameron Parish was the big winner, receiving slightly more than $7.9 million with the pipeline companies splitting a refund of $241,000 of the $8.1 million paid under protest in that parish.

The $82.96 received by Pointe Coupee represented the lowest amount received by any of the 52 parishes involved in the lengthy litigation.

Baton Rouge attorney Brian Eddington, who represented the parishes, singled out three assessors as being instrumental in the decision to defend against the companies’ litigation.

“Jimmy Dean, who just retired as the LaSalle Parish assessor, Carmon Walker of Catahoula and Mike Wooden of Morehouse were the ones who decided early on that we should stand up against the pipeline companies,” he said. “Some felt it was just too steep a hill to climb to go up against those guys.”