Harrison County Commissioners Freeze Property Taxes

Here is a question. If the assessed value for a house was $89,000 for the last 7 years but now goes up to $195,000 in 2006, is the County Assessor doing her job? Houses are suppossed to be assesed at fair market value. If the Assessor claims that she did her job this year by reflecting the fair market value of 195k, then can it be said that she did not do her job last year, or the year before, or the year before that when the assesed values were unchanged? The value of the house did not increase in value by $106,000 in one year. This kind of increase is over 100% in one year. There should be a maximum incremental change allowed on the value of assessed property in a single year. And it should be single-digit low. Perhaps no higher than some average of a well established and customarily used index for inflation. Think about it. The County Assessor may use whatever yardstick she chooses to jack up the taxes on a piece of property. If a new buyer pays more for a house she can claim that is the real market value of the home because someone paid it and use that figure. Sounds fair? But here is the problem with doing that. Parity. Other similar pieces of property or better pieces of property in the same area that did not change hands are not radically re-assessed to reflect a community wide increase in perceived increase in real estate values because of the price of the smaller house. This leads to a situation where the smalest, least desirable piece of property in a neighborhood or community may sell for a high price, but it is the only piece of property sold in a given year. Therefore that owner pays more taxes than his neighbors with bigger and better pieces of property. The last buyer in is burdened with a majority of the tax increase because of a new sales price. The new tax assessment on that property may be greater than the surrounding larger houses with more acrage, etc. Harrison Co. Commission Freezes Property Values If a house is reassessed upwards than that should drive a reassessment of every house in the neighborhood and result in a similarly changed percentage increase for all home owners. And that is where the fun starts with public hearings. The County Commisioners are to be commended for their unusual stance of freezing the property taxes. Let's hope they have the courage to stick with it and provide guidance to the Assessor about radical percentage change increases in property values.