Dell may leave Lebanon without ever paying property taxes. The company kept enough jobs around through the end of 2008 to maintain its exemption with the city and Wilson County.
The county Industrial Development Board received a letter certified by an outside accounting firm late last month. Attorney Bob Rochelle represents the body and says Dell showed it employed an average of one-thousand forty people last year.
“The in lieu of tax agreement with Lebanon and Wilson County requires them to have at least one-thousand jobs or else they have to start paying a portion of their property tax.”
Rochelle figures Dell has less than 250 employees now, but its unclear of the company’s tax breaks would transfer. For every ten jobs below a thousand, Dell would have owed one percent of its tax bill. The total comes to more than $136,000 annually, which has been waived since the company set up shop in 1999. Assessor Jack Pratt says the Dell site has one of the largest tax bills in the county.
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