Property owners on notice: Tax bills going up

Monday, Nov. 15, 2004 | 11:04 a.m.

Hundreds of thousands of Clark County property owners are receiving or soon will receive unwelcome notices that their tax bills are going up, in many cases dramatically so.

The Clark County assessor's office mailed 32,000 "notice of value" cards out Wednesday and will continue mailing them until cards for all 480,000 property owners in the county have gone out. The cards frequently document what Assessor Mark Schofield has been warning: Unless the Legislature acts, property owners will see their bills increasing, in some cases by 50 percent or more.

For home and commercial property owners, the difference can be thousands of dollars. Schofield has warned of a political uprising and urged the Legislature to cap the size of the increase at his suggestion of a maximum of 6 percent a year.

Schofield said he needs the Legislature to act to cap the increases before March so work can be done throughout the state to prepare the property tax bills.

The problem is that property value has increased dramatically in the past year and so will the property tax.

"I would urge the public when they get their card to look at it very carefully, and if they have refinanced their home in the last year and a half, to look at that appraisal," Schofield said. "I can assure them that the appraisal there is lower than ours.

"I would also say if you purchased your home recently, look at the purchase price you paid and look at the value we have on it. You would have had to have been in Europe for the last year and a half not to understand the extra appreciation we have had in the last couple of years."

The cards actually are arriving about a month early, Assistant Assessor Rocky Steele said Friday. The notices will come out in batches through this week, he said.

The notices are going out early because the office is preparing for what is feared to be an avalanche of appeals from property owners shocked by their tax bills.

"It will give us both more time," Steele said. "If there's a flood of appeals, it will give us more time to process the appeals."

Schofield noted that state law doesn't allow people to win appeals simply because the property value, and thus the ultimate bill, has gone up.

The earlier notice also gives property owners "more of an opportunity" to consider the notices, the first step in what ultimately will generate the bills to come to property owners and mortgage companies early next summer, he said.

Steele said Friday that his office has not yet received complaints from property owners, but has received anxious calls generated by the media scrutiny of the property-tax issue.

Among those with concerned about the tax issue is Robert Glass, an Air Force engineer living in Summerlin for a decade. Glass believes he will see at least a couple of hundred dollar increase in his property-tax bill.

He said the taxes "ought to be stabilized."

"We have enough growth," Glass said. "The taxes for the new homes ought to be enough to keep pace with what's needed."

Glass said he is not convinced that the government needs the extra tax revenue that the increased property taxes will bring to the Clark County School District, local governments and the state in about equal thirds.

"I can't believe they've got to keep jacking up the taxes," he said, adding that he is concerned that the money is too often going to giveaway programs for people who do not work.

"I kind of wonder what the tax money is being spent on?"

Glass said Schofield's proposal to cap increases at a maximum of 6 percent annually doesn't go far enough. He suggested a much smaller increase of .25 or .5 percent annually, which is a fraction of the annual inflation rate of the past several years.

But where Schofield's proposal includes an across-the-board cap regardless of whether the property is sold or not, Glass said that when a property is sold, then it should be reappraised. The new owner would then be responsible for a new property tax that could be significantly higher than the old bill.

"That way people know what is expected and know what to budget," Glass said. "A lot of people are retired and don't have a chance to increase their income. That can be a problem. People have to choose between buying food and paying their house tax.

"As long as you stay in that house, your taxes would increase very little. Make up the difference at the point the house is sold."

Glass said he would like to see some stability in the issue of property taxes in order to better budget his own retirement, which comes next month.

Allison Williams, who with husband Gary Butler moved into a home in Las Vegas' northwest a year ago, said the increase in property taxes is leading her to reconsider her move from California.

"I moved from California to come here. Now I'm thinking I might have to go back because the taxes are going up," she said. "It's just overwhelming."

She welcomes the idea "of some kind of cap."

Butler, however, said the 6 percent is still too steep.

"I think it's more government getting greedy," he said. "I think the politicians are just seeing dollar signs, where they can get the most money. Six percent -- that is still quite significant."

Noting that one of the issues that doomed California Gov. Gray Davis in a recall election last year was a huge increase in motor vehicle fees last year, Butler said voters will consider who moved the fastest, farthest to reduce the impact of property taxes.

"That can happen here," he said.

Not all of the data needed for a full analysis is yet in. Schofield's office is preparing a full analysis of the impact of a cap and of no cap on the school district, state and local governments. Until those numbers come out, many local and state officials have been hesitant to offer an opinion of where a cap on increases should be.

The Nevada Taxpayers Association is considering the proposed cap, said Carole Vilardo, executive director of the group.

"We have said that conceptually we support the proposal," Vilardo said.

She said that although the group often is viewed as being opposed to taxes, members also believe that "people want services, and government has to be able to maintain the level of services."

Still, any cap needs to work not just for Clark County, but statewide. The taxpayers association needs to know what the impact will be, then, throughout the state -- information that may not be available before January, Vilardo said.

Schofield said that even with a cap at a 6 percent increase, government probably will still lose some revenue as the population increases and demands for services keep pace.

"If you go below 6 (percent), you're going to have to start thinking about what services government is not going to provide, or what services we were going to provide that we are no longer going to provide," he said.

The cap he is proposing "is not an increase," Schofield said. Without the cap, "People are going to get a 25 to 50 percent increase. ... They are just going to get hammered when they get the tax bills."

Without a cap on increases, the fiscal bind that the state and many local governments in Nevada are in would immediately be eased, Schofield said, but he believes the relief there would be only temporary. Ultimately, a taxpayer rebellion could severely impact finances for state and local government.

"The government would have all the money they need -- until the initiative petition appears."

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