Your home: Ogden lawmaker proposes a big change – Salt Lake Tribune.
Very interesting proposal from Rep. Neil Hansen, D-Ogden:
Outrage over skyrocketing property taxes in some counties have fueled months of discussion over how to improve the current valuation system.
While several fix-it bills are on the table, Rep. Neil Hansen, D-Ogden, proposes a major change: basing property assessments on purchase price instead of the assessor-determined fair market value.
“I’ve always felt the price you pay for the home is its actual value,” Hansen said.
While some say such a change would require a constitutional amendment, Hansen believes the bill could be worded to avoid it.
His yet-to-be-drafted proposal would signal a significant shift. So far, it has gained little traction on Capitol Hill.
“I know there will be entities that come out against it, but I feel the discussion needs to happen,” added Hansen, recently elected to his sixth term in the House. “We see people being taxed out of their homes.”
Think about your home. Would this make a big impact on you? Most homes, I assume, would pay less property taxes based on their purchase price rather than appraised value. I like less taxes, but of course, there’d be consequences (decrease in revenues.) Maybe that’s what we want though?
I’m working on getting Rep. Hansen booked on the show to talk about this, then it’d be interesting to hear from Rep. Jack Draxler, R-North Logan, as he’s an appraiser and a legislator.
Would this mean the government wouldn’t have to employ assessors? That would save some money.
There are a couple of major obstacles to a plan like this.
In order to base property assessment on the actual purchase price of a parcel Utah will have to get rid of its non-disclosure status for real estate transactions. Right now when you buy a home the amount you pay for the property isn’t public record or even available to the government unless it was sold through a Realtor and was publicly listed and sold through the MLS. Getting a change like that past the Realtor and Developer lobby in our legislature won’t be easy.
Another obstacle is our state’s constitutional provision that assessments be fair and equitable. Any scheme that bases property assessment on the purchase price instead of the fair market value of homes in any given area is bound to end up being inequitable as property values in that area change. For example…if someone paid $25,000 for their home 30 years ago and their neighbor bought an identical home next door for $250,000 yesterday their property taxes will be grossly inequitable.
Our current system works really well. There are some anomalies in most county assessments where people see dramatic value increases they weren’t expecting or that are inaccurate but in nearly every case these problems are easily fixed when homeowners do a small amount of research on what is going on and appeal their assessment.
A better fix for our property tax system would be to increase the circuit breaker abatement available to the elderly, infirm and indigent. We should also allow far more eligibility for these abatements than we currently do. People who are on a fixed income or who can’t work for one reason or another shouldn’t be taxed out of their homes. We can fix this problem without creating a grossly unfair and inequitable tax system like that being proposed by Rep. Hansen.
In the interest of full disclosure: I work for the Davis County Assessor’s office. This comment represents my opinion only.