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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tax Appeals An Expensive Proposition $198,000 In Reassessments Cost Taxpayers $330,000

Kootenai County residents snatched $198,000 from the tax collector’s fist during this summer’s record-setting property assessment appeals.

But taxpayers will foot the bill for keeping appraisers and clerks working non-stop for nearly two months - about $330,000.

Widespread appeals were, in part, the result of a campaign by the Kootenai County Property Owners Association. County officials say the strategy of swamping them with appeals backfired.

“To say taxes are too high and then add $330,000 to the budget seems counterproductive to what they were trying to accomplish,” said Deputy Assessor Mike McDowell. “Many people (who appealed) were led by not-so-prudent advice. It should make them mad.”

Assessments are county estimates of land, home and business values and are used to calculate property taxes. Lower assessments mean lower taxes.

On Thursday, Assessor Tom Moore released results on the 1,452 pieces of property whose assessments were appealed - about 2.6 percent of all property countywide.

“The other 97.4 percent of the county will now share the burden of the cost of processing the superfluous appeals,” McDowell said.

Land values skyrocketed this year, but county officials lay much of the blame for the large number of appeals on one man - tax hound Ron Rankin.

Rankin, president of the property owners association, scoffed at Moore’s numbers, calling them “smoke for the media.”

“I gleefully take credit for what happened because he’s not telling you the whole story,” Rankin said.

Rankin spent June cornering residents in the courthouse and urging them to file appeals. In a typical year, about 50 landowners appeal. This year, that figure rose to 940.

Ray and Margaret Ramsey understand why.

The retired freight truck driver said he discovered this week that he and his wife had been taxed on property they don’t own.

“If they do this to us, what are they doing to other folks?” asked Ray Ramsey, 71.

Ramsey said a clerical error meant he was paying taxes on a patio he’d had on land he had sold in 1992. The patio was ripped out that same year.

The tax is less than $40 a year, but for a retiree on a fixed income, he said, that’s too much.

“It’s just plain wrong,” he said. “I’d fight it if it was $5.”

McDowell said he could fix the error as soon as he confirmed it. He insisted that situation was rare.

Most of this year’s tax appeals were denied, he said, confirming that the assessor’s office does a good job.

Moore said value was reduced by the county commissioners on 633 of the 1,452 properties. Of those, 190 reductions had been recommended by the assessor’s office.

Nearly nine out of 10 property owners who won lower assessments will have their tax bills trimmed by only $16 or less. Total property tax reductions countywide equalled about one-third of 1 percent of the county’s $4.1 billion property value.

Moore and McDowell said the total reduction of $12.5 million in land value this year is far from the $100 million Rankin had predicted. The corresponding $198,000 in lost tax revenue also didn’t mesh with Rankin’s estimate of $1.6 million.

Rankin insists Moore’s tally doesn’t include reductions granted earlier in the summer to prevent residents from appealing in the first place.

“People in the assessor’s office were calling people at home and working out reductions on the phone,” Rankin said.

Rankin maintains his predictions are right.

Said Moore, “We have the facts and the figures; let’s see his.”

, DataTimes