Taking "No!" for an answer is not the style of state Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, who for the third time will introduce a bill in the 2008 state Legislature to right one of the principal wrongs in Idaho's property tax/assessment laws.
Her legislation would require sales prices of property to be made public. This would end the almost medieval nonsense of county tax assessors' relying on guesstimates to fix the value of property on which taxes are then computed.
That system is incorrigibly unfair. Simply because some property owners use hidden sales prices to protect their real or imagined wealth, many property owners are paying unfairly calculated taxes. Sales prices and values change mercurially in today's erratic housing market.
This time around, Rep. Jaquet's proposal has the unanimous support of the city of Hailey and the Sawtooth Board of Realtors. We hope devoutly that fair-minded Republicans that control the life and death of legislation also will see the overwhelming justice in Jaquet's bill.
Meanwhile, in a preview of his 2008 legislative agenda, Gov. Butch Otter also has his eye on property tax changes—although his plan to limit the growth of assessed values to the inflation rate already is being panned by Republicans as not workable and thus unacceptable to the GOP majority.
However, now that the governor sees flaws in property taxation methods and expresses a willingness to seek change, this opens the door wider for Rep. Jaquet's heretofore failed attempts.
Perhaps 2008 is finally the year for tax enlightenment in the state Capitol.
