‘This is not a bill’: Don’t freak out over your Idaho 2020 property tax assessments
When Ada County residents get their property assessments in the mail next month, many people likely are going to be surprised and probably a little upset.
The Ada County Assessor’s Office doesn’t yet have hard numbers, but assessments have continued on their upward trajectory, and this year is going to be no different.
These assessments are coming in the mail at the end of May, amid an economic slowdown because of the coronavirus outbreak and a statewide order to stay at home in Idaho.
That’s led to businesses shuttering and workers getting laid off or temporarily furloughed, putting a financial strain on most households.
In the middle of all this, many homeowners are going to get notices showing that their property’s assessment has gone up — again — by a lot.
So I thought it would be worth explaining this ahead of time, not only to warn our readers but to explain how the process works and why, even amid an economic downturn, their assessments are continuing to skyrocket.
I spoke with Ada County Assessor Bob McQuade, chief deputy assessor Brad Smith and appraisal division supervisor Erin Brady by phone to get the details.
Assessments are determined as of Jan. 1 of each year and are determined by looking at the sales prices of houses throughout the previous year.
The Ada County Assessor’s Office looked at 12,000-13,000 actual sales prices in Ada County in 2019, Smith said, and then applied those sales prices by neighborhood and subdivision to determine individual assessments.
Assessments are done on a “mass appraisal” basis, meaning an appraiser doesn’t come to your house individually and inspect it each year. Appraisers lump in your house with other houses in your neighborhood to come up with your assessed value.
At the risk of oversimplifying, the assessor’s office will look at all of the sales prices in, say, the North End of Boise. If those sales prices are averaging 10 percent higher than the previous year’s assessments, the assessor’s office will then go through and increase everyone’s assessed value by 10 percent. So if your house was assessed at $400,000 on Jan. 1, 2019, your assessment on Jan. 1, 2020, would be set at $440,000.
The Ada County Assessor’s Office is required to have an audit done on its results, and last year, assessments were 98% of actual values, McQuade said.
It’s important to note that your assessment does not fully determine whether your property taxes will go up. It’s just the first in a series of factors that determine what your property tax will be.
The assessment notice is the basis upon which your city, county, school district and other special districts will base your tax bill for the upcoming fiscal year, which, for most agencies, starts on Oct. 1.
Just to be clear, the property taxes you’re paying now are based on the assessment that was mailed to you in May 2019. After that, last summer, cities and counties set their budgets for the 2019-20 fiscal year, and you got your tax bill in November, with at least half due in December 2019 and the other half due by this June.
City councils, county commissioners, school boards and others will be meeting over the next several months to come up with their budgets for the next fiscal year, 2020-21. What they set their budgets at will determine your tax bill in November. So even though your assessment might increase by 10% or more, that doesn’t mean your tax bill will go up by that amount.
In fact, I would strongly urge those city council members, county commissioners and other budget setters to cut their budgets for the next fiscal year in the face of what promises to be a difficult economic time for many.
