By Bruce Walker
Pacific County Assessor
The 2017 revaluation notices have been mailed. These are the new assessed values which will be used to calculate the 2018 property taxes. Any property which had a value change will receive a notice. If you do not receive a notice then the assessed value on your property has not changed. If you disagree with your new assessment you have 30 days to appeal. The appeal deadline this year is July 3. By law the assessor’s office can’t change values after this date if the value hasn’t gone through the appeal process.
After you receive your new value notice, please take some time to review it. Our goal here is to be as accurate and fair as possible. We used only comparable sales prior to Jan. 1, 2017, to determine the new values. Since we physically inspect only one-sixth of the county annually and statistically determine the other values, something might change that would affect a property’s value. If you have questions about your new value, or something has changed to your property, please call the office at one of the numbers below. We will also have sales lists available so you can look at the same sales we did.
Overall, both the number of sales and sales prices have increased. This means that a lot of the values in the county have gone up. As usual some areas have gone up more than others. In some cases if there has been a noticeable increase, it might have been because the old value was too low. This can be the result of not having enough sales in an area previously to justify a change in values. Property taxes in Washington are budget based not rate based like a sales tax. A 10 percent increase in assessed value does not mean the property taxes will increase 10 percent. By law the levy amounts of each taxing district can only increase by 1 percent from year to year.
In other news the Washington State Association of County Assessors had two priority bills in the Legislature this year. HB1309, Concerning Removal of Land from Current Use Classification due to certain Natural Disasters. This would allow the removal of timber and farm lands from the current use programs without paying compensating taxes. In many cases, after a large fire or other natural disaster, the land is unable to continue in either program. There’s no need to further penalize people who have already suffered a large loss. We also introduced, and Sen. Dean Takko sponsored, SSB 5133, which gives the local Board of Equalization 45 days after a hearing to release a ruling. WSACA thinks it’s important for everyone to get a timely determination. As of this time both bills are on course to be passed and signed into law.
Please remember that you only have 30 days until July 3 to appeal your new values. Next February when you get your tax statements for 2018 is 8 months too late for next year’s taxes.
If you have any questions about this article or any other property tax issues, or see a correction needed on our Taxsifter or Mapsifter websites please contact us at 875-9301, 642-9301, 484-7301 or 267-8301.
