Missoula County opposes HB 132, Require property tax bill to include comparison to prior year, up for hearing at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, Jan. 14, in the House Taxation Committee.
HB132 would require a lot of additional information be presented on the tax bill. From our standpoint, the only major change would be to include a comparison to last year’s taxes per line item. In speaking with TaxWise, this would require that we move to a two-page tax bill. The increased cost to the Missoula County would be about $4,000 per year ($3,000 in printing costs and $1,000 in staff time dealing with a much larger electronic print file). Given that our historic tax bills already appear online, this doesn’t provide any additional information to our taxpayers that isn’t already readily available.
For a true comparison to be made, the information requested would need to assume that year over year all property characteristics have remained the same, to include property values. To educate the taxpayers as to why differences could be occurring, multiple pieces of information would need to be presented to minimize confusion. Allowing the taxpayer to evaluate year-to-year bills to see this information allows for the appropriate information to be presented, which could allow for better analysis. The way HB 132 requires the information to be presented will lead to more confusion and imposes an additional unfunded burden on the county with little to no recognizable benefit.
Sent Jan. 13:
ReplyDeleteRepresentatives Marler and Thane,
Missoula County opposes HB 132, Require property tax bill to include comparison to prior year, up for hearing at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, Jan. 14, in the House Taxation Committee.
HB132 would require a lot of additional information be presented on the tax bill. From our standpoint, the only major change would be to include a comparison to last year’s taxes per line item. In speaking with TaxWise, this would require that we move to a two-page tax bill. The increased cost to the Missoula County would be about $4,000 per year ($3,000 in printing costs and $1,000 in staff time dealing with a much larger electronic print file). Given that our historic tax bills already appear online, this doesn’t provide any additional information to our taxpayers that isn’t already readily available.
For a true comparison to be made, the information requested would need to assume that year over year all property characteristics have remained the same, to include property values. To educate the taxpayers as to why differences could be occurring, multiple pieces of information would need to be presented to minimize confusion. Allowing the taxpayer to evaluate year-to-year bills to see this information allows for the appropriate information to be presented, which could allow for better analysis. The way HB 132 requires the information to be presented will lead to more confusion and imposes an additional unfunded burden on the county with little to no recognizable benefit.
Please oppose HB 132.