Firm's tax payments trigger fears, probes
Company paid off liens on 16 properties that faced county auction
The paralegal student tried to pay off her property taxes and was told someone had already paid the nearly $2,500 tab.
Had Christmas come early?
"It would be nice if it were that simple and just had my taxes paid for me," Merrell said of the bill on the home willed to her by her late grandparents. "But something fishy is going on."
The smell is so bad that investigators at the Utah Attorney General's Office and the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office have started preliminary inquiries. No one is quite sure why Wideye Investments, a Salt Lake City-based investment company, recently paid off nearly $358,000 worth of unpaid taxes for 16 parcels in Salt Lake County, including Merrell's house.
The properties, a mixture of both residential and business parcels, were scheduled for auction at the county's May 25 tax sale. Property owners had up until that date to pay off the taxes that had gone unpaid for nearly five years.
But Wideye Investments is no Santa Claus. The company — like any other business — is out to make money, and company officials insist they did nothing wrong.
That's exactly what Wideye Investments wants to do, owner Michael Memmott Jr. said. His company is brand new and just registered as a business with the state in March.
"We're not here to kick anybody out of their home," Memmott said. "We're doing everything within the law, and it's they who haven't paid their taxes in five years."
Wideye paid off the taxes on the 16 parcels within the past two weeks and received tax-redemption certificates, notes that state the taxes have been paid but that do not give the company ownership of the properties. County officials say the property owners owe Wideye nothing.
But the company wants to take on the county's role as debt collector and charge a statutory annual interest rate on the unpaid property taxes. The end goal is to eventually take ownership of the property, Memmott said.
The only problem is Utah's law might not allow it.
"I don't understand their theory that they get to collect the tax and charge interest," said Mary Ellen Sloan, a Salt Lake County deputy district attorney. "There is nothing that I know in Utah law that permits them to step into the taxing-entity position."
Assistant Attorney General Scott Reed said that the property owners indeed owe Wideye nothing.
You can be the first to comment on this story.