Oddly enough, one of the booths at the Metroparks Zoo Earthfest Day today was manned by the County Auditor’s staff. I had to go over and talk to them because Brooklyn Res commented on my post about surveying of neighborhoods….regarding changes to the property tax appeal process.
First, the staff member told me it would take a revision to the Ohio Code of Law in order to change the appeal times. (Currently, we have December through March of any given year to appeal our property taxes).
Secondly he said since taxes are assessed every three years, it makes the most sense to do the appeal during the first year of the three-year cycle. Why? Because you can appeal two years in a row then. If it’s not the first year, then you can only appeal one year during every cycle. I am assuming you would be appealing two years in a row because the first appeal did not work?
So how would all of you feel about a revision to the Code in order to change the time frame for appealing? This gets me back to the issue of Charter Reviews and the fact that there are supposed to be times for public input to commissioners on the review committee……anyone heard of town meetings announcing this fact? No, me either.
Peace Out – 3C
0 responses so far ↓
1 BrooklynRes // Apr 21, 2008 at 8:56 am
Why should we allow local and regional governments/ tax assessors to take years to adjust property values forcing “owners” of property to pay over-inflated tax rates, based on outdated tax assessments?
The current property tax assessment/collection process may have worked well in times prior when lots of paper needed pushing around, but enabled as we are with information and technology, there’s almost no excuse for a limited open window within which one may be able to appeal and fix an erroneous tax assessment.
The situation we are facing sounds like a classic double bind, with the average taxpayer more than caught in the middle: Property tax payers are suffering at the hands of an over-zealous banking industry, and are also victims of under-performing local/regional governments.
Mortgage companies and banks can use the power of the information age to act on changes in market conditions and quickly alter adjustable rate mortgages (increasing interest rates) and limiting access to credit (suspending home equity lines of credit) when one’s property value decreases.
Using the same information and technology that banks and mortgage companies use to respond to changing market conditions, counties and municipalities could also adjust their assessment and collection processes.
If the Ohio Code of Law needs changing to bring some balance to the situation, then there is no time like the present to begin to make that happen.
What are other more enlightened counties/municipalities doing to reform their tax codes? Let’s look for the best examples (in the US and elsewhere) and demand similar processes and systems be adopted locally to fix our outdated, outmoded system.
2 Carole Cohen // Apr 22, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Hi BrooklynRes, I haven’t had much time to do any research about other counties and cities, but I do think discussing this at a public town hall meeting about Code Reform issues would be terrific. This is definitely the time to get the issue out in the open. Now if we can just find a meeting!
3 BrooklynRes // Apr 23, 2008 at 8:52 am
Has the PD addressed the issue of lower property value and possible relation with amended / lowered tax income? I wonder if Becky Gaylord would be interested in this line of inquiry.
4 Carole Cohen // Apr 23, 2008 at 9:17 am
Brooklyn Res, if you think she would be a good person to contact for this are you up for doing that? A newspaper story might generate some good discussion on this.
5 Poitner Appraisal // Apr 20, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Taxes are paid one year in the rears, meaning the date of valuation for taxes paid in 2008 is Jan 1, 2007, and taxes paid in 2009 is Jan. 1, 2008 and so on. In declining periods, your taxes are based on the prior higher sales prices. However, because the markets have changed so drastically in some years and reassessments are only 3 years apart, many times they are not accuarate. Check out the tax appeals pages under the owners page at our website: http://www.PointerAppraisal.com
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