BANK FRAUD FOR FUN & PROFIT?; BAY CITY BALLER CONCOCTS PHANTOM TAX CREDITS: Steven Ingersoll Stalls Stahl & Traverse City State Bank With Purported Tax Credit Sale Windfall

DID ANYONE AT TRAVERSE CITY STATE BANK VERIFY INGERSOLL'S TAX CREDIT CLAIMS WITH THE STATE OF MICHIGAN? 

WELL, I DID, & THIS IS WHAT I DISCOVERED--A POTENTIAL BANK FRAUD.

OK, so it took me a while to get this report online, the true story of Steven Ingersoll's phantom "Brownfield Tax Credits", but you're not paying for a subscription, right?

 

In my opinion, there were no legitimate business reasons for Mark Noss to assume repayment of Steven Ingersoll's $950,000 delinquent Traverse City State Bank line of credit debt...but a steaming pile of illegitimate ones.

The Traverse City State Bank line of credit was arranged by Steven Ingersoll in 2007. 

Ingersoll pledged his 12% management fee from the Grand Traverse Academy, in addition to other business assets and a personal guarantee of repayment. 

According to Dan Stahl’s February 27, 2012 “Line of Credit Renewal Analysis”, the line of credit was initially used solely at the Grand Traverse Academy. The scope was later expanded, enabling Ingersoll to use the money in Bay City and for other non-school-related development projects. 

The balance was down to $0 in between March-May 2011—but less than one year later, Stahl’s analysis revealed Ingersoll’s “average balance YTD” was a whopping $989,825. 

Ingersoll asserted to Stahl that he had used $756,000 from Traverse City State Bank line of credit in Bay City, during the renovation of the Bay City Academy. 

However, in a January 17, 2013 email to Stahl, Ingersoll claimed he intended to pay the delinquent line of credit debt down with “tax credit” monies derived from the Bay City Academy project. 

In the email shown above, Ingersoll claimed that Stahl knew he was using the line of credit money “temporarily” for the Bay City project, and was aware that the delinquent amount would be repaid when the tax credits from the Madison Arts project came in, or Ingersoll's other tax credits were later sold. (Ingersoll purchased the 400 N. Madison Avenue property on April 9, 2010, and the Bay City Academy charter school opened at that location in September 2011.)

However, according to an official in the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) the only the Madison Arts project, the renovation of the building housing the Bay City Academy, received a certificate of completion, and there were no other "amendments" to Ingersoll's other credits indicating they would be offered for sale and not used for development.

Here is a direct quote from the MEDC email:

"As background, after MEGA or MSF approval of a brownfield MBT Credit project, the Qualified taxpayer undertakes the work. Once the project is completed as approved, the Qualified taxpayer sends a certificate of completions request to the MEDC request to the MEDC brownfield staff. If the request fulfills statutory requirements, a certificate of completion is issued. The Qualified taxpayer may then submit the certificate of completion to the Department of Treasury for one of two choices, a refund or tax abatement."

The tax abatement would apply to the entity executing the project. In Ingersoll's case, it would have been Madison Arts, LLC.

As Michigan corporate tax records are exempt from FOIA requests, the there's no way to confirm Ingersoll's choice or a refund or tax abatement.

But, if you look at Ingersoll's history of dodging property taxes on the Madison Art building, you'd be safe to assume he took the refund.

 

Ingersoll stopped paying property taxes on the Madison Arts building shortly after the school opened, right up to the moment Chemical Bank foreclosed on the building in July 2016.  

 

So why did Traverse City State Bank official take Ingersoll's purported "tax credit" sale solely on his word, and not seek independent verification of a claim related to a years-long, outstanding $900,000 debt?

I don't know, but you may want to ask this guy.