Is anyone else astounded by their new property assessment?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
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25 comments:
Ours was way off base with a 136% increase. Even during the heady days of "consequence free" real estate speculation this would be considered crazy. Now that we're dealing with the consequences of these ill thought schemes this increase seems even more erroneous. I'm taking this issue up with Klickitat County. No way can they justify this.
I've already called for a redo on my assessment. The person answering the phone said it's been rather busy all day. Wonder why.
Two of my neighbors had 80%+ increases in their assessments.
One neighbor was told the rate increase was calculated based on the price of the last home (property?) sold in 2007.
Is that really how assessments are calculated? Why not just throw a dart at a bunch of numbers?
Maybe the County needs to raise more money to file more lawsuits to stop the demolition of the dam, stop the Klickitat Rails-to-Trails project and more legal battles of choice, or maybe just to pave more roads for a select group of developers and property owners. The Commissioners just estimate the money needed for their pet projects, and then leave it to the Assessor to spread the cost among County property owners.
Ya think?
I just reviewed my property tax assessment and mine is showing about 40% of actual worth so I am not unhappy. This does however bring up some questions about how their are doing their assessments.
I take that back, my wife just brought me a different piece of paper that shows that they are assessing on 327,400k. Based on what I paid for the property that assumes about a 10% increase over the year.
That is not wholly unreasonable considering we are one of the areas that has not shown a considerable drop in value of the homes.
I heard MR. Vandenberg speak at our Rotary Club a few months back and he prepared us for what was coming.
If my memory serves me, he stressed that although the assessed values have increased sharply, I seem to remember that he saud the rate was also adjusted the net increase in property taxes will be as bad as it looks.
If that truly is the case, the county could have done a better job of presenting this so they didn't send everyone into sticker shock.
Why not compare the prior taxes on the same revaluation notice so people can get a better understanding of what will actually be coming out of their pocket books? Is that too easy?
Jonathan Blake
White Salmon
I got my property tax statement and called the Assessors Office. I can't afford to pay doubled taxes to this county. I think it is time that the people on the West end of Klickitat County begin to look at splitting from the east end. What do our tax dollars do? It keeps Goldendale going. All the jobs available in the county are in Goldendale and if we want to go to a county commissioners meeting we have to travel 50 miles to go to it. We seem to be supporting all those people on the east end who get to claim farm land exemption and hardly pay taxes at all.
So, what do we have to do to split into "West Klickitat County"??
I think people need to relax and realize that their taxes will not double.....the assessmsnt may have but the rate will be recalculated at a lower multiplier and the end result should be an increase but not the whopper everyone is panicing about.
The last comment is absurd. Although the yearly increase of property taxes are capped -- I believe the maximum increase is 10% -- this over-the-top increase in assessed value guarantees maximum increases in property taxes for several years to come, and it sets a precident for additional future unfair increases in both assessed value and tax rates. This is something that must be nipped in the bud. Resist!!
Stinkfoot.
While an increase in taxes is never fun both the assessments that I received are fairly accurate of market value. Even though there was over a 150% increase in both. According to the Assessors office the increase in dollars coming out of your payment will not rise exactly like the assessments. There are caps and the millage rates are re calculated.
If you want to see high taxes go look in The Dalles, or pretty much anywhere else. Klickitat County has fairly cheap taxes compared to a lot of other counties in our area. You can thank the East Side of the County for that. Rabanco, wind mills, power plants, etc.
The East side produces way more tax revenue than the west side.
"Stinkfoot said...
The last comment is absurd. Although the yearly increase of property taxes are capped -- I believe the maximum increase is 10% -- this over-the-top increase in assessed value guarantees maximum increases in property taxes for several years to come, and it sets a precident for additional future unfair increases in both assessed value and tax rates. This is something that must be nipped in the bud. Resist!!"
Sorry Stinkfoot.....if a calm and analitical approach based on fact gathering is absurd then call me crazy!
I don't think the comment above was absurd....it was merely commented that people should not panic, find out the facts and that the taxes would not be double, which I suspect was some people's initial and worst fear.
I don't get it Stinkfoot.....what do you find absurd about it?
You said "this over-the-top increase in assessed value guarantees maximum increases in property taxes for several years to come"
Where did you see this guarantee maximum increase information?
I think the increase is capped at 1% not 10%.
Here is how this works:
http://dor.wa.gov/Content/GetAFormOrPublication/PublicationBySubject/TaxTopics/PropertyTax/OnePercentQnA.aspx
The current levy rate for White Salmon is 10.26087 so if your home was assessed at $100,000 for example in 2007 your taxes would have been $1026.09....if the assesed value increased to $200,000then the taxing districts are forced to lower their rates to keep the increase at a maximum of 1%.
Bottom line is that I don't think the sky is falling here........not to say that if you got a bad assessment you should not appeal.
Please if anything I commented on here is inacurrate by all means let me know.......I am kind of new to this stuff and may have misread or misunderstood the material.
Jonathan Blake
White Salmon
I think Jonathan is entirely correct here. I do think that Van could have done a better job preparing the people who were going to be receiving the huge increases in their assessed values that the levy rate would be adjusted downward to reflect a modest increase only.
It is true that Rabanco and the windmills bring in tax revenue, but also consider that all the farmland on the Eastside is mostly taxed as EFU. I don't know of any power plants that aren't tax exempt. I probably wouldn't have thought so much about it, but if you recall there was a meeting in White Salmon recently about re-zoning Husum. Someone made an arrogant, nasty comment about "having the meeting in white salmon instead of Goldendale". Well, since it impacts the people on the west side of Klickitat County, I would say it better for the commissioners and staff to come to the west end instead of all Husum traveling to 50 miles to Goldendale. It just makes more sense.
Taxes can be a pain, but there's no free lunch! Remember folks, no one in Washington pays any state income tax!!
Well we could as a society reduce taxes........but people are going to have to decide what public services they can live without.
The question is, are you ok not having 911 ambulance services, paved roads, public education, fire protection, health department, planning department, police or animal control.
If you could eliminate one public service that would reduce your taxes, what would it be?
Personally I could live without paved roads....anyone else care to voice your thoughts?
Jonathan Blake
White Salmon
Actually we don't need to reduce services to reduce taxes. In fact, if we change the taxation to a different model and control our spending we could have much better public service.
Here is a couple of questions for you:
1. How much do you think we spend on the IRS?
2. How much do you think we would save if there was a flat tax, off the top?
2a. That means no deductions. We don't deduct our kids, we don't deduct our interest from our mortage etc...
Instead we pay say... 10% right off the top. (Want to bet how much that 10% equals out to for the rich? A lot.)
3. What if we required a balance budget from the fed?
4. What if the fed was only allowed to create up to a X% of debt, thus controlling debt but using it wisely to initiate growth.
Just some ideas for you.
You sound like a Libertarian.....I like it! I don't necessarily disagree with you except with one caveat.
Because the flat tax is regressive, there are some people that will need to me left out of the equation and some that incrementally scale up from 1% to 10%.
But you are talking about income tax........do you have another solution for the local taxes that this topic pertains to or does your idea combine the two?
Jonathan
I would be considered a tree hugging, libertarian who believes in local government (state) management with significant high level (20k feet) federal oversight. I am not a strict libertarian as I do believe some regulation is required (even if I don't like it).
Case in point, I believe all Internet connectivity should be considered a federal commodity (like the Interstate) and all companies pay the same base wholesale price. This would also include cable.
As everyone would pay the same base price and the government would still be prevented from providing the actual service, you could have a rush of entrepreneurs again.
Anyway back on point. I actually don't think local taxes come into play. In fact I would think that they would be eliminated. Here is the idea more fleshed out.
Each person pays 10% off the top. For the sake of argument (even though I don't agree) let's say that anyone earning less than 20k annually pays 5%. Anyone making more than 150k annually (don't kid yourself, that's a lot of people) pay 15%. So we get the "tier" that makes people feel better.
Here is the kicker. *ALL* taxes are removed except for this tax. That means, gasoline taxes (even though I actually don't have a problem with them in their current form), business license fees etc...
Now. In fairness, you can not expect the person to carry the weight of the giant. Thus businesses too would have a flat tax.
I am from Oregon, I moved to White Salmon about a year ago. I was at first really irritated at the Washington taxes, to the point where I almost left my business in Oregon. Then I did the math.
I pay flat, off the top. It doesn't matter if I make a profit or not. Why is that important? Because when I was an Oregon company, I paid almost 100k one year in taxes. PGE paid 10 bucks.
You pay off the top. Its the only fair way.
Thus in this scenario the gov takes another 5% (as a comparison I pay .015 right now) right off the top of businesses. And for the sake of those who like the tier, let's say that any company with revenue greator than 20mil a year, pays 10%
Now do a little math on that. Do you think we need local taxes? Do you think we need separate taxes for every line item?
O.k. now how do we solve local taxes, local rule, local services? Simple. The state provides budgets based on total dollars provided to the state. You divide that, by the number of citizens and then you allocate based on population of each town. Why does this work?
When you take a town like Bellevue which is relatively affluent, the higher amount of taxes offset the lower income folks of say Klickitat.
E.g; Every city gets exactly the same amount of money per citizen. It will make the larger cities become more efficient and the smaller ones be able to provide the same services the larger ones can.
Well I received my bill and it is over $700.00 higher for the year! Vandenberq was quoted in The Enterprise as saying "The highest increase I saw was where someone went from about $1,300 for the year to $1,700," well I beg to differ! maybe he didn't notice them all. In this economy where people are struggling to keep their homes as it is, now it is even harder. My monthly house payment will be 65.00 higher each month!
Well, you have all the rich yuppies to thank for that, just as much as Vandenberq. Some people can't even live here anymore. What's next? When do we take our community back? It doesn't seem like true locals even care about that anymore. Sad.
So how do you want to take back the community?
It seems like everything in White Salmon went up at least 25%. I'm sure the county budget didn't go up that much. Revaluation has apparently shifted the burden to the western part of the county. Did anybody in the east see their tax bill go down? With increases like these, surely somebody's did?
Yes, we live east and ours went down, but we were told we would see a big hike next year...
We bought in '02 and our taxes have always been more than double of our neighbors (long time owners) with comp property.
Well, at least White Salmon's valuations won't be able to increase any more in the next decade(s)... Now if the Klickitat wants to raise taxes they'll have to do it via millage, and that will affect everyone in the county (not just the west enders). That's a lot harder to sneak through without some backlash from the majority.
"Well, you have all the rich yuppies to thank for that, just as much as Vandenberq. Some people can't even live here anymore. What's next? When do we take our community back? It doesn't seem like true locals even care about that anymore. Sad."
thats why we have been hoarding guns and ammunition, right? take back the town!
Take back the town!
Lets make it like it was in the late 80s- the "glory years" when our children had to move away for lack of opportunity.
Take back the town!
I actually don't think local taxes come into play. In fact I would think that they would be eliminated...
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