Property Tax Joke, i.e. not Practical

Horror crossed his face. With an emphatic smack, Bryan set the envelope's contents on the counter. The bad news? Our property tax assessment came in 10 percent higher than last year--a year in which it increased 6 percent from 2009.

Oh the drama.

Bryan spent the next 30 minutes surfing tax records online only to find that most of our neighbors' property taxes actually went down, not up. A few simply stayed the same. Yeah, we did replace a rotting chimney last year, and we've remodeled one bathroom . . . . but folks on our block have added a master bedroom suite, extra square footage, and so forth. And our house is probably one in more need of improvements compared to the rest of the block. So, how in the world does our house cost so much more per square foot????

We've heard horrible stories of those who've gone before us to protest the property tax assessment . . . . in essence, "don't waste your time." Thus, Bryan collected a lot of information, well-organized and succinct.

He called on Monday. After briefly explaining the situation, Bryan was hoping for some explanation as to how the assessor's office came to such a conclusion on our property. What he received was a casual, "Yeah, that looks like a problem. So, what would you like your tax to be?"

Really?

Really.

While we did negotiate lower property taxes with little resistance from the city, this is not a comforting response from the assessor's office. We are not trying to evade paying any reasonable taxes; we'd really like to know HOW our property taxes are determined.

We shall see what next year holds . . . . .