The total failure of an Alberta oil company has Ponoka County writing off another big chunk of property taxes.
At its meeting on Oct. 25, council passed a motion to cancel $125,000 from 2018 that was incurred by the now bankrupt energy company Quattro.
CAO Charlie Cutforth explained that when the company filed for bankruptcy in February 2017, the county took $250,000 in taxes off the books.
READ MORE: County chooses lesser of two evils by compromising
However, the county was only recently notified that there is now zero hope of recovering any money and that the current write-off is on installations that were still in Quattro’s name. It also includes one year’s worth of non-payment penalties.
Quattro Exploration is due to have all of its remaining debts — after one financial creditor received a small amount of funds — cancelled and all monitoring and work by the receiver halted through a court order. The date for that final discharge was supposed to be Oct. 25, but has been delayed by the court for an unknown reason.
A number of the oil and gas assets owned by Quattro have been handed over to more than a dozen companies during the bankruptcy process. However, a number of other oil and gas sites remain abandoned.
RELATED: Ponoka County seeing almost $2 million in unpaid taxes
Cutforth did note that the county will make an application to the province in an attempt to recover the school tax portion, but he wasn’t optimistic.
Last year, the county set aside a $500,000 reserve fund to cover off these kind of losses, but Cutforth believes the county will be able to absorb the $125,000 within the current budget.