Taxpayer challenges Oklahoma County assessor over drilling-rig valuations in BOE hearing

Taxpayer representatives appeared by phone before the Oklahoma County Board of Equalization on July 22 to contest the assessor's valuation of oilfield equipment in account P3124528 (DOE203). The assessor's package lists total value for the account in the range of $11.1 million to $12.4 million across packets; taxpayer representatives asked the board to reduce the rigs' value substantially and to treat the items as largely scrap.

Nolan Williams, representing the taxpayer's side, said the seven rigs in question are "literally just a metal skeleton" and that the company had reclassified many items as scrap on its own books. "They're sitting there as just scrap," Nolan Williams said while describing photos and a parts inventory the taxpayer provided the county clerk the day before the hearing. He said the taxpayer's lump-sum opinion of market value for the rigs and inventory was roughly $2.0 million (including about $2.2 million of parts inventory and roughly $40,000 per rig as a scrap-derived figure).

Assessor/task staff and board members responded that the BOE is an appellate body and that evidence not presented to the assessor during the informal review may not be considered at the hearing. Chair Eleanor Thompson cautioned that if documentation was not provided before the informal phase, the assessor's office would be at a disadvantage responding to it at the hearing. "If you've appeared in front of us before you know we don't... take evidence and make a decision de novo," Thompson said, explaining the board's procedural limit on receiving late-submitted documentation.

Board members and staff also noted the account contains a mixture of inventory and rig schedules and that previous years' appeals produced differing outcomes: the board reduced a prior-year valuation from about $24 million to roughly $11 million after a board hearing. The BOE did not make an immediate valuation change on the record for DOE203 at the hearing; the board closed the hearing and said a decision would be issued later in the week after staff review of the materials and process.