PeaceHealth settles Longview back taxes for $1.4 million including fees

The more than a decade of Business and Occupation taxes that PeaceHealth forgot to pay the city of Longview ultimately cost the health care provider nearly $250,000 in interest and more than $400,000 in fines and fees.

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The only relief PeaceHealth received from the city of Longview for the six-figure oversight was a $17,759.97 waiver of interest accrued while the city conducted a roughly four-month audit, according to an email Monday from Longview Public Information Officer Angela Abel.

"This interest was accrued at no fault of PeaceHealth," Abel said, describing the reasoning for the waiver.

The audit ran from early August through the end of November, according to Abel. The city ultimately calculated back taxes at $759,062.10, plus $248,269.90 in interest for a decade of nonpayment, according to Abel.

PeaceHealth paid the $1,007,332 in combined back taxes and interest in late 2025, plus another $409,894.06 in fines in mid-January, according to Abel.

She said the $1,434,985.51 total amount paid to the city came after PeaceHealth "exhausted all appeal options with the city of Longview."

Earlier estimates based on preliminary calculations had estimated the back taxes without penalties to be between $500,000 and $600,000, according to an August news story referencing figures reported in Beckers Hospital Review.

Although the payment was completed in January, news of the seven-figure settlement was brought up as an aside during Thursday's city council meeting.

Councilmember Kalei LaFave said that during one of the city's new "Longview 101" civics classes, a participant asked about the back taxes.

"That has been resolved," LaFave said, adding that it was "paid in full" with fines, penalties and fees. She went on to thank PeaceHealth for its efforts to resolve the matter.

"I want to thank PeaceHealth for working so closely with our team," LaFave said.

When reached for comment, PeaceHealth spokesman Jim Murez provided a statement emphasizing that the oversight was "mutual" and that the health care organization expedited the process of paying the city what it owed.

"We appreciate the City of Longview working with us to remedy the mutual oversight of the back tax issue," Murez wrote. "Upon resolution of this oversight in early December, we expedited the distribution of a check to the City of Longview to cover the outstanding taxes due plus accrued interest. We look forward to continuing to build on our long and positive partnership with the City of Longview that reaches back more than 80 years."

Nonpayment goes back to 2010

PeaceHealth told the city at an August revenue committee meeting that it stopped paying B&O taxes in 2010 when it consolidated its billing from an office at St. John Medical Center to a regional center, according to an earlier news report from last summer.

Although the missed payments go back roughly 15 years, the city was only able to collect taxes for the last decade.

Chris Collins, Longview's assistant city manager and public works director, explained to The Daily News in an email in August that the city could only go back a maximum of 10 years for businesses that failed to file any taxes within that period. By contrast, Collins explained that any business that had paid taxes in the past decade would be on the hook only for missed taxes in the last four years.

PeaceHealth's missed tax payments surfaced last summer, as the city's revenue committee began exploring lifting hospital tax exemptions to improve its bottom line. The council formed the revenue committee in 2024 in response to looming budget shortfalls.

The council approved initial steps to lift tax exemptions on hospital services in late August, according to an earlier news report. Ultimately, the council at the Oct. 9 meeting voted to start taxing hospital revenue in the city above $20 million, effective July 1.

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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 12:38 PM.