Tax Assessments

A measure to cut taxes for beleaguered city homeowners moved like a steamroller through the Baltimore City Council, flattening doubters on its way to winning overwhelming preliminary approval even though some supporters fear it is going too far too fast.The bill, which has been endorsed by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and 17 of the council's 19 members, would limit to 4 percent the amount that property tax assessments for most owner-occupied houses in the city could grow in a single year.The 4 percent cap would curb property tax bills for some 71,000 homeowners, according to city figures.

RG Steel is asking for U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval for a settlement with Maryland that lowers its Sparrows Point property assessment, reducing its Baltimore County bill for the past three tax years. The steel mill owner calculated in a court filing that its tax bill would fall about $830,000 for the 2011 tax year. It didn't note the effect for previous years. RG Steel said it won a $34 million reduction on the property's 2009 assessed value - to just under $204 million - in Maryland Tax Court in August.

For the third straight year, many Maryland homeowners are getting good news in the form of flat or lower property tax assessments. The average increase statewide is .6 percent.That represents a tiny rise from last year, when the statewide average was zero increase. The flat trend of the last three years contrasts sharply with the average 7 percent increase of 1991 and the 17.3 percent average increase of 1984.More than half of the 590,000 notices mailed today will show no change or a reduction below 1991 levels, said Ronald W. Wineholt, acting director of the state Department of Assessments and Taxation.

What the state doesn't know about your property could hit you in the tax bill. That's why it's a good idea to call the state Department of Assessments and Taxation and request your property " worksheet ," which gives details about the land and improvements that assessors use every three years to revalue your home or business property. Once you have it in hand, you can take a look and see if anything's amiss. A nonexistent building, say. That's what happened to one of Tom Kimmitt's clients.

David Kornblatt has a question for the Tax Man.If St. Paul Plaza, the office building that the veteran developer opened in 1989, was a big enough bust to put his company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, how could its tax assessment go up 15 percent last month?Questions like that are breaking out all over. Office developers hammered by a market in which vacancy rates have climbed to more than 22 percent are getting -- and protesting -- new tax assessments that show their projects' values, and thus their tax bills, holding steady or even rising.

More than 400 Carroll home owners appealed their 1991 property tax assessments in the final days before last month's filing deadline, pushing the total number of appeals 27 percent above the number filed last year.Following what assessment officials called a typical last-minute surge, 1,402 northwest Carroll home owners had appealed theirassessments. That number, the highest recorded here in the last 10 years, is 295 more than the 1,107 appeals in 1990. Home owners filed 417 appeals in the final two days before the Jan. 24 deadline.

Ed Parker thought he was moving to a quiet, pleasant neighborhood when he bought his home in Arnold 15 years ago, but it never occurred to him that he had purchased the winning ticket to a real estate jackpot. Then, he opened his letter from the state Department of Assessments a few weeks ago. It said that his home, purchased for about $200,000 in 1989, is worth almost $400,000. It also said his land was three times more valuable than just three years ago. "Yes, yes, it's turned out to be a good investment," Parker said.

When it comes to fighting property tax assessments, having a solid case means everything. Just ask Ronald Wineholt. Years before becoming the director of the state Department of Assessments and Taxation, Wineholt decided to fight what he thought was too high an assessment after buying his first home. The house he bought in 1982, while working as a staff member in the state legislature, was assessed for $2,000 more than the purchase price. He fought and he lost. Looking back, he said the real estate market had slowed because of high mortgage rates and that he had an eager seller who gave him a good deal -- but in the state's eyes, it was a little too good.

The Howard County Council chose to take no action last night on three controversial legislative proposals, including a Republican member's bill to put a 5 percent cap on increases in property tax assessments, which was tabled until after next month's elections.Also postponed in the hope that controversy could be avoided before the Nov. 6 voting was action on a county adequate facilities bill and a weed control measure.The adequate facilities bill, which would direct growth into areas where roads and schools can handle it, is now scheduled to come up for a vote Oct. 29 -- a week before the elections.

It's predictable: As new tax assessments go out, protests come in. But much of the shouting simply compounds the confusion. Unfortunately, much of that confusion is clouding the debate over the Linowes report on tax restructuring.Assessments are designed to be an objective measurement of the market value of property. Rising or falling assessments reflect rising or falling real estate prices. In Maryland, these values are set by a state agency -- a method which keeps the process relatively free of political pressures that would inevitably creep in if the assessment role were a function of local jurisdictions.

To our knowledge, The Sun's newsroom staff has received no special training in tax assessment and record keeping, yet reporters armed with no more than foot leather and personal computers seem to have a gift for uncovering gross errors - more charitably known as "discrepancies" - in Baltimore's property tax records. First, it was the abuse of the Homestead Tax Credit, both legal and not, that has likely cost the city substantial sums in tax breaks given to properties that weren't eligible for the cap on assessment increases.

Richard Landis is on the right track, battling the Maryland Sate Department of Assessments and Taxation to get fair market value for his Anne Arundel County home. ("Buyers find relief to costly hints of homes' past worth," Dec. 13). Mr. Landis paid $165,000 for his home and was assessed at $268,000, prompting him to appeal his property tax assessment, a similar situation to what my daughter ran into in Montgomery County. My daughter, Alison Whitty, and her husband paid $385,000 for their 1950 brick rancher in Silver Spring but were assessed at $531,000 for it. I helped my daughter go through the appeals process in which she got a meager $30,000 reduction at the first step.

It's hard to decide which is worse: the notion that dozens of Baltimore City parking lots might not be paying the taxes they owe, or the fact that the city is so disorganized that it's not sure whether they are. Sun reporter Julie Scharper reported Tuesday on a preliminary audit of tax records showing that city workers were unable to find records of tax payments in a city database for 52 parking lots that were advertised online or elsewhere or...

Del. Keith E. Haynes informed the Howard County Department of Finance yesterday that he was returning five years of property tax discounts he improperly received under the Homestead Tax Credit program. Haynes was one of several legislators identified in a Sunday Sun article as getting tax breaks for "principal residences" in which they did not live, or for having multiple properties designated as primary residences. The Baltimore Democrat got tax breaks for a Columbia home he owns because it was listed as his principal residence.

Rising assessments sink home values The article on property reassessments contains this reassuring statement: "Many homeowners won't feel the full impact for years because increases are capped" ("Reassess- ment shocker," Feb. 4). But the reality is that the new property tax assessments will quickly reduce the market value of city properties because the new values determine the taxes future buyers will pay. Because buyers take into account the tax liability associated with their purchase, they will reduce the amount they are willing to pay for a property.

The Howard County Council approved a bill last night that would reduce the local property assessment cap from 5 percent to 4 percent in July 2007, despite a strongly worded last-minute veto threat from County Executive James N. Robey. The bill, suggested by western county Republican Charles C. Feaga and co-sponsored by two other members, passed on a 3-2 vote, one shy of the margin needed to override a veto. Robey's move was puzzling, said council Chairman Christopher J. Merdon, who said he first heard of it in a telephone message several hours before last night's voting session.

Annapolis would hire more police employees, provide raises to city employees and lower the property tax rate under a spending plan released yesterday by Mayor Ellen O. Moyer. The mayor proposed a $57.5 million budget that would reduce the property tax rate by 2 cents, to 58 cents per $100 of assessed value. But many homeowners can expect to pay more in property taxes this year because of rising real estate assessments. The state reported last year that tax assessments in the city had risen an average of about 40 percent over three years; those new assessments are being phased in. The state limits assessment increases to 10 percent a year.

Harford County representatives to the House of Delegates have placed a plan by County Executive James M. Harkins to create special taxing districts on its summer-study agenda, effectively killing the bill for this General Assembly session, officials confirmed yesterday. Del. Barry Glassman, a Republican who is delegation chairman, said yesterday that he sent a letter to Harkins late last week notifying him of the delegates' decision. "There were just so many unanswered questions," Glassman said.

Some Anne Arundel County residents are in for a little sticker shock when they open their residential property tax assessments, which were sent out by the state Friday. The average one-year increase for residential properties reached nearly 27 percent in Annapolis, compared with 24 percent in other areas of Anne Arundel County that were surveyed by the state, including Crofton, as well as Edgewater, Davidsonville and other parts of South County. Local and state officials said the county's overall increase - among the largest in the state at an average of 22 percent a year when commercial properties are included - was driven by rising market values in a rapidly growing area with miles of waterfront property and million-dollar homes that routinely top weekly sales figures.