Our View: Way to go, boys


Craig Editorial Board

  • Bryce Jacobson, newspaper representative
  • Jennifer L. Grubbs, newspaper representative
  • Bridget Manley, newspaper representative
  • Allan Reishus, community representative
  • Chris Runyan, community representative
  • Ken Wergin, community representative

— The Moffat County Commission deserves a thank you.

So thank you, Commission, for spending the money it took to hire Visual Lease Services, a company that likely earned the county about $1 million in extra revenue.

The county spent $198,000 to hire Visual Lease. Now, when you look at that number and you don't know how much it's going to pay off, it's a pretty steep price.

But, thankfully, the Commission heeded the advice of Assessor Suzanne Brinks and obeyed that old business adage.

They spent money, so they made money.

The county didn't have to raise taxes. It just had to enforce the tax codes on the books.

For those of you who don't know, some energy companies in this county weren't accurately reporting their business personal property, according to Visual Lease.

Compressors worth around $1 million alone had been left off the books for years.

Pipelines were missing or reported at 1970s sale values.

Visual Lease reported there was upwards of $30 million worth of additional commercial property found.

If true, it kind of makes you wonder what's going on out there.

If true, it kind of puts a bad taste in your mouth.

A representative of certain energy companies said it's only natural that businesses would have mistakes on their taxes.

You have to understand those companies have so much property to keep track of, and mistakes will be made.

Now, every business can probably say that, and it'd be true up to a point.

If someone audited every business in town, they'd likely find a lot of missing property. The Daily Press probably has some problems.

But we wonder if businesses have the same problems keeping track of their profits. Something tells us their records are pretty good on that end.

You would think companies would hire someone to keep track of its property and taxes, someone full time. Maybe even someone who had an accounting major in college.

Maybe someone that the person who's counting the profits knew from school.

Business can claim they were mistakes, but that doesn't make it any less illegal.

Why is it that corporate crimes seem to be more vilified than an average 7-Eleven robbery?

Maybe it's because we can see ourselves in those smaller-scale crimes. Kind of a "there but by the grace of God go I" sort of thing.

Or, perhaps, it's just because the corporate criminals seem to think they never did anything wrong.



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