Possibly the most well-known method of delivering the mission of the School of Government is through teaching. But to me personally, another very important delivery method is through advising. Last year, 45 faculty and other professionals at the School of Government reported 13,105 advising events. I hope my individual advising can become an increasingly valuable resource for you. I believe I can be more valuable to everyone when you individually ask me to be involved. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to provide advice on a presentation. The Randolph County commissioners requested the assessor’s office to do something that makes government better in my opinion. The request was to be more transparent and informative for their taxpayers, but more specifically regarding the county’s business personal property (BPP) tax audit program. The assessor’s office was asked to put together a presentation on their program and they asked for my ideas. I want to share some of those ideas so you will hopefully share your thoughts in the comments section and we can grow this resource for everyone’s use. Maybe this post can be a tool for collaboration. Continue reading
Author: Kirk Boone (page 2 of 2)
Let’s go over them.
In late 2014, just after joining the SOG, the NCDOR included me in the initial discussions among assessors about North Carolina’s reappraisal standards. This blog post includes some of the thoughts and questions that I shared with the group at that time. Please keep in mind that this post is written informally, from my perspective during late 2014. I was discussing with the committee, mainly through emails, whether the assessment system our taxpayers deserve was being delivered. On the other side of an inadequate reappraisal, I wasn’t sure our lawmakers in Raleigh would accept an excuse of, “We weren’t given the needed resources”. I’ll refer again back to this related blog post on ways to request what is needed.
Try this online exercise. Go to Chapter 105 of the North Carolina General Statutes. Here’s a link. Once there, most browsers will allow a search feature. A common way to search in many software applications is to press the <Ctrl> key +F. Now search all of Chapter 105 for “tax administrator”. It doesn’t exist. But there are lots of tax administrators in North Carolina, right? Now search all of Chapter 105 for “tax supervisor”. The tax supervisor is referenced 9 times in the Machinery Act. And if you read the context of those references, there are a few important roles involved there. How many counties have a tax supervisor to fulfill these roles?
Although there are no deaths to avenge in this story, it can be a tragedy to lower a business personal assessment when it is not warranted. Reducing a value, is a de facto exemption. It is an expense to the county. Accounts (parcels) with the highest value in local governments are quite often business personal property accounts. When a BPP assessment is reduced without proper reason, it can create de facto classifications. This means your largest taxpayers could be assessed at a lower assessment ratio than the smallest residential taxpayers. That doesn’t sit well with me. There are certainly many variables to consider when faced with a request to lower an assessed value. Read on for this 5 act, I mean 5 question, blog post.
Last month, I started the discussion with Part 1 of this topic. Near the conclusion of Part 1, I hoped for some questions and what-ifs. I got ‘em, and I hope this month’s post will provide some insight.
In a previous post, I mentioned objective and subjective data along with the NCDOR’s new reappraisal standards. That information will be helpful when reading this post. The new reappraisal standards have been in development for over two years and have involved committees with members from the NCDOR, UNC School of Government, and NCAAO. In August, the NCDOR emailed a draft of those standards to all assessors for review and comment. Some comments from local tax officials have been related to the need for additional staff in order to meet the new standards. Chapter 5 of Assessment Administration. Chicago, IL: IAAO, 2003 is a well written chapter detailing the management tasks needed for an assessment office to meet requirements and goals. This post focuses on how planning well includes an effective justification of the assessor’s need for staff and resources. Understand first that we all engage in planning almost every day. It’s either done formally or informally. So if we’re going to plan anyway, we should plan well and be exposed to the best practices. Regarding planning, Albert Einstein is rumored to have said, “If I had 20 days to solve a problem, I would take 19 days to define it.” Our objective in this post is really to turn staff and resource concerns into math problems, without requiring Albert Einstein’s help for the solution.
These new reappraisal standards, if followed, will alter your goals and plan objectives. For example, checking and updating property characteristics data at a designated level of accuracy is an example of a plan objective tied to the goal of meeting the NCDOR reappraisal standards. That objective requires specific activities. Activities require people and resources. We hope all local tax officials desire to do quality appraisal and reappraisal work for the public they serve. Our taxpayers deserve competency, fairness, and equity. No doubt, high standards are needed and the NCDOR should be applauded for issuing them. NCGS 105-273(10a) defines a local tax official as including a member of a county board of commissioners. And while all local tax officials most likely desire to do a good job and meet standards, raising standards undoubtedly can require more staff or other resources, which in turn requires adequate funding.
“[T]he budget becomes an expression of public policy in terms of the resources a government is willing to allocate for equitable property taxation. The budget is also a reflection of how much political support exists for accurate and equitable assessments. Legal and administrative responsibilities cannot be met if resources are inadequate.” Assessment Administration, 119.
This is the exact question that I was asked recently.
“Are all North Carolina, county, ad valorem, real estate appraisers subject to the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP)?”
This could be a very short blog post. The answer to the question is, “no”. But a different question, “Should all North Carolina county ad valorem appraisers comply with USPAP?” leads to a more in depth discussion. The answer to that question is, “yes”. I believe if you act as an appraiser, you should comply with USPAP.
It is comforting to know that as assessors and appraisers, we speak the same language. We had a great learning experience last week in IAAO 331, Mass Appraisal Practices and Procedures. Our instructor was David Cornell, CAE, MAI. David is from New Hampshire and brought fantastic discussions to our group of 23 North Carolinians. The discussions and examples we experienced can be used for improving appraisal equity and uniformity in individual jurisdictions throughout our state. One of the items that we discussed was a worthy repeat from other mass appraisal courses: The importance of data in the assessor’s office. Not only do we need to collect the right data for model specification, but we have to collect it accurately.
At the upcoming NCAAO Fall Conference, the NCDOR will be conducting sessions on their new reappraisal standards, to be published later this year. Continue reading
There are many worthy assessment-related questions posed on PTAX and elsewhere that I hope we can address during the life of this new blog. But given our blog title, Death and Taxes, and a topic looming around us that some have coined Dark Stores, it seems like a dark and creepy coincidence to start right here.
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