County Property Tax Revenue Tops $1-Billion Mark

Orange County will collect $1 billion in property tax revenues for the first time, Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron announced Tuesday, and the top taxpayer is still the Irvine Co.

“It’s the first time the county has gone over a billion dollars,” Citron said. The precise total is $1,079,539,000.

The Irvine Co., which last year settled a bitter, two-year battle with the county over its property taxes, racked up a 1986-87 bill of $38.8 million, Citron said.

The county’s tax man said the runners-up and their bills were: Pacific Bell, $16 million; Southern California Edison, $12.8 million; Rockwell International, $5.7 million, and Hughes Aircraft, $5.5 million.

Citron said the second payment of 1986 property taxes is due Friday and noted that some taxpayers erroneously assume that the deadline is April 15, which is the filing date for income taxes.

Property owners who fail to pay their taxes by Friday or have them postmarked that day face a 10% penalty and a $10 fee in addition to the tax. Citron collects payments levied by the county, school, college, transit, sanitation, water and light districts--206 taxing agencies in all.

Citron said tax payments this year were running ahead of last year’s level, apparently because many taxpayers made both installments by last Dec. 31 to deduct them from last year’s income taxes, when federal tax rates were higher.

Still, a large chunk of cash remains to be collected, since the property tax take as of April 2 was $659 million, he said.

“We have had our phones ringing off the hook,” Citron said, although the tax bills were mailed last year and allow payment in two installments. “People mainly want to determine what their taxes are” and pay them, he said.

The county usually experiences a 3% delinquency rate in payment of its taxes, Citron said.

Citron said the Irvine Co. payment topped its bill for 1985-86, which was $34.6 million.

The county originally tried to collect far more from the firm, which was charged $47.4 million at first for the 1986-87 year before winding up with the $38.8-million levy.

County Assessor Bradley L. Jacobs in 1984 ruled that Donald L. Bren’s purchase of a controlling interest in the firm in 1983 required a mandatory reassessment under state law, a ruling the company battled, as it did Jacobs’ estimate of the company’s worth.

After paying taxes in protest for two years and having them put in an escrow account, the company reached an out-of-court settlement with the county last October, received refunds for overpayments of the disputed bills and wound up with the 1986-87 bill of $38.8 million.