Meet Your Assessor: Billy The Bartender

By Catherine E. Johnson

Don’t get me wrong, I like bartenders.  Some of my best friends are bartenders; guys and gals.  I just don’t think they should be assessing my property. Yet in New York, Massachusetts and many other states ANYONE without any background in assessing and in some cases not even a high school education can and does affix a value to your property.

Shocked?  I was.  Yet this common practice has gone on for decades without anyone raising Cain about the lack of credentialed professionals that generate your property tax bill. Would you entrust your health to someone with no medical training? Or even something as mundane as your driveway getting re-surfaced by say, a dog trainer?

I’m guessing you would not, or if you did you would pay the price in another way, such as you are more than likely doing right now with your property taxes.  Our research at PropertyTaxRights.com has turned up a host of “errors,” misclassifications, and outright fraud on hundreds of property record cards.  Many property owners have blindly trusted their assessors to know their job and be “fair;” just as many have been outraged when they get a copy of their own card and find glaring mistakes that have jacked up their property taxes erroneously for years. Oh yes, they’ve paid their bills and after one year goes by, there is NO hope of getting their money returned even though the assessors made a terrible boo-boo.  The legislators have made sure of that.

While the Teaparty movement has focused largely on national issues, local assessors and out of control spenders in Select Board positions have made sure that despite a horrible housing market, your assessment and your tax rate are going up.  When that is coupled with diminishing state and federal aid you have a financial Molotov cocktail that threatens to make you one of the many new homeless. If you don’t pay your property taxes they can and will take your home, even if your bill is incorrect.  The elderly, disabled, and unemployed are particularly hard-hit by these increases, but trust me, the assessors and the SB members care not.

Take a look at their property tax bills and you will see why. We found many assessors and other town officials whose property tax bills were way off the mark; not even close to fair market value.  State agencies look the other way and this profound fraud and tax evasion is simply accepted as one of the perks of the job.

So what do we need to do?  The best solution is to pressure our legislators to get rid of the antiquated property tax system altogether because it cannot ever be made fair.  Some states such as South Carolina, have successfully cut their property taxes in half by raising their sales tax 1% while other states are bringing the property tax issue straight to the people via a referendum.

Since our legislators are rarely forward thinkers and appear to need to hang on to every form of taxation they can, option number two is property tax reform beginning with getting rid of backyard assessors and instituting professional, credentialed appraisers who are not allowed to assess property in their hometowns. It’s time to notify our representatives that if we are going to be taxed on our homes then at the very least we must insist on a high level of professionalism that has largely been absent and put every property owner at risk.

For more information including a list of representatives and their contact information visit:  www.propertytaxrights.com