Property Tax Appeals on the Rise
As the economy has faltered, individuals and businesses alike have been forced to take a closer look at their bottom line. As expected, the number of property tax appeals reflects that reaction.
As reported by Lee Weisbecker in the Triangle Business Journal, appeals to the North Carolina Property Tax Commission averaged just 793 annually throughout the 2000s. In 2011, there were 1,263. That number was a forty year high. We think the Property Tax Commission might be in for another record year for 2012.
We wrote in another post that 19 of North Carolina's 100 counties were scheduled for a 2011 revaluation. Mecklenburg County, North Carolina's second most populous county, was one of them. Mecklenburg County taxpayers reacted to the revaluation by inundating the County with requests for informal review - so much so that the County still has not made it through all of those requests. Obviously, high numbers of requests for informal review creates the potential for high numbers of Board of Equalization and Review appeals and ultimately Property Tax Commission Appeals.
So, if Mecklenburg County is any indication, the Property Tax Commission should brace itself for another record year.
Image Copyright Pauline Eccles. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License
Comments (2)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endSteve - February 29, 2012 7:41 AM
Thanks for the information. But why it is happening. As we know very well the property values are decreasing and our property taxes are increasing . It should not be so.
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Justin M. Hardy - February 29, 2012 9:19 AM
Thanks for the comment and the question, Steve. In my opinion, one major reason for the increase in appeals is that taxpayers (both individuals and businesses) have been forced by the economic downturn to take a closer look at their balance sheets. In the past, the "property taxes" line item may not have garnered attention. Now, every line item is worthy of examination. When folks examine their property tax expense, they often determine that they are over assessed.