Olathe ? Johnson County officials are fighting to keep $118,800 in taxes overpaid by a Chicago company that misplaced a decimal point.

Johnson County District Judge Kevin Moriarty heard arguments in the case Friday and plans to soon rule whether Fleet Business Credit Corp. should get its money back.

The dispute is over a $54,589.62 industrial sander that Fleet purchased in 1999 and leased to a Johnson County company. When submitting information for tax purposes, the company mistakenly listed the purchase price at $5,458,962 — two decimal points off from reality.

The error meant the company was assessed a tax of $120,369.98 — 100 times what it should have paid — which it submitted before the end of 1999.

The company was alerted to the error in May 2000 but waited more than two years to follow up with a written grievance to the county’s Board of Tax Appeals.

The board dismissed the grievance, saying Kansas law allows it to rectify errors made only by the county, not by a taxpayer. Fleet then sued.

“The full amount should be refunded,” said Lawrence attorney John Knox, who represents the company. He could not explain why Fleet took so long to report the error.

Kathryn Myers, an assistant attorney for Johnson County, argued that ordering a refund would pose a hardship because some of the money has already been distributed to cities and school districts.

“I’m very sorry for Fleet,” Myers said. “But the county shouldn’t have to bear the burden of its mistake.”

Knox said although Fleet is a subsidiary of a large national company for which the tax loss might not have a major effect, the principle was still at stake.

“One-hundred-twenty-thousand bucks is 120,000 bucks,” he said.