Stop the property tax shell game
The Chicken Little phenomenon unleashed here when state auditors discovered that thousands of residential properties had been undervalued for tax purposes should set off more than a lot of misinformed squawking about taxes.
It should set off a roaring demand by property owners that the Idaho Legislature mandate reporting of property sales.
Why were properties in Idaho?s resort counties undervalued? Because the Blaine County Assessor?s office simply couldn?t believe that values had jumped as high and as quickly as they had.
Forced to use sales numbers cribbed by hook or by crook from others willing to provide them, the assessor?s office always deals with an incomplete picture of local property values. That leaves local assessors no choice but to go into the by-guess and by-gosh mode to establish the values of local properties.
Make no mistake. The assessors are good at their jobs, but the system is rigged against them--and against taxpayers. Keeping sales prices secret makes it tough for them to meet the legal requirement to assess all properties at market value. In an overheated real estate market like the one blazing away in the Wood River Valley, it makes it impossible.
It?s not in taxpayers? interest to continue to keep secret the price at which property sells. Property taxes shouldn?t be a shell game in which the taxpayer has a less than equal chance of paying too much or too little.
Forcing disclosure would ease the burden on tax assessors and save the hundreds of hours county commissioners and residents spend going over tax appeals every year. If sales price disclosures were required by law, most confusion would be eliminated and errors reduced.
Taxation at best is a necessary evil. Unfair taxation is just evil because it forces people with fewer resources to subsidize those with more.
Keeping sales information secret benefits only a tiny minority of Idahoans. Yet Idaho?s over-whelmingly Republican majority in the Legislature has continually refused to change the law.
So, the only hope is to find Republican legislators and change their minds. Residents should call or write them?their phone numbers and addresses are available on the Internet--and tell them what happens when property sales prices aren?t disclosed.
Legislators need to hear from people around the state. They need to hear about the unfairness, uncertainty and distress that incorrect assessments create.
As unbelievable as it sounds, they need to hear that Idahoans want fair taxation.
