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Help Me Decipher Land Tax Appraisal
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Russ In Idaho
Posted 5/23/2015 04:31 (#4586193 - in reply to #4585321)
Subject: Could be something like I had.....................


“These are the times that try men's souls.”
A few years ago I had tax notice come and my appraisal had jump quite high on a portion on my property. This land sat at an intersection of the county road. The ground was all the same, laser leveled, water rights, fenced, and county road access. The only difference I could find in my mind was the road access, the portion that raised had paved road frontage and power running along it. I went into assessors office and asked why the increase? Well they got on the defensive about it, said they done everything right, so I asked for a meeting with appraiser. When I came to meeting we found out that appraiser valued this higher because my water rights for irrigation (tied to the land) came from spring water delivered in a canal system dated back to early 1900's water right.

So this started the discussion about water filings, and water use. He told me that any farms with pumps & sprinklers were valued less than older farms with flood irrigation rights. My argument was that they should be valued higher because they had fancy pivots, where as I had dirt ditches and used siphon tubes to irrigate. I told him that was crap, there was more value in their pivot irrigated ground than mine. He told me that pumped water was more costly to irrigate with, thus they lowered appraised value. I then reminded him that I too had my own wells, and shared wells on this canal system that was co-mingled with the original spring water. At that point he lowered my appraisals because I had wells to irrigate with.

Also one thing to consider is that they might not have done an appraisal on this ground for some time, and they are bringing up to par with everybody else's ground. If this land hasn't changed hands for a long time that my be the case. In Utah I have to have the Ag. exemption in place or they tax you to death, Idaho doesn't have that. I pay over five times more tax per acre of ground in Idaho than Utah. I also feel I get better services from county in Utah than Idaho, but there is also a better tax base in Utah, more industry.

I have seen in my county in Idaho, the taxes go down a little in the past 5 years, than what I paid 20 years ago. They take a weighted average of crops produced, cattle prices etc. to base mil levy is what appraiser told me. But they have really jumped houses and shops, out buildings up in valuations in the last few years.

You need to also watch houses, and shop values. Don't let county's value them more than what a bank would loan appraisal be, When I built my new home in 2005' county instantly jacked my value of new home more than $50,000 than bank's last appraisal when I closed the loan. I told them that was crap, I told them I would pay no more than bank appraisal rate, they lowered their figures. I told the tax appraiser who would loan the extra $50,000 to a new buyer to buy this home? With that said they lowered my values. You need to keep last years notices handy to review & compare every year to see if they drastically try to increase values.
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