Hundreds appeal property value assessments

COEUR d’ALENE — More than 700 Kootenai County property owners have appealed their 2022 value assessments — a major increase over recent years.

Just 81 appeals were filed last year, while 76 were filed in 2020.

Commissioner Bill Brooks, who sits on the Board of Equalization with his fellow commissioners, said the high volume is due in part to the area’s continued growth.

Many appellants are new Idaho residents who have questions about how the Gem State’s property tax system differs from the state from which they moved, Brooks said.

But Idaho’s levy-based tax system means that higher property values don’t necessarily translate to higher property taxes.

In this system, taxing districts — such as cities and counties — set their budgets, determining the revenue each district needs.

The budgets of all taxing districts are totaled and then divided by the total sum of all property values in the boundaries of the taxing districts. That determines the levy rate.

The levy rate is then applied to each property in the taxing district’s area in order to calculate the individual tax charges for each property.

When budgets increase, the levy rate also increases, causing property taxes to rise. But property values do not influence the levy rate.

Brooks said most appellants have been receptive to explanations about how assessors determined a property’s value.

“People are generally understanding,” he said.

Each day this week, commissioners considered appeals from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. or later.

The process will continue through mid-July. The original deadline for the county to complete the appeals was July 11, but the state granted an extension until July 25 for the Board of Equalization to address the numerous appeals.

“Everybody is going to get heard,” Brooks said.

Under Idaho law, the assessed value is assumed to be correct. That means the burden is on the appellant to prove the assessment is incorrect.

The board had considered 125 appeals by noon Friday.

In each case, the board upheld the original assessment.

One property owner, who did not wish to be named, said he was stunned when the value of his property — a 3,800-square-foot cabin on Hayden Lake — increased 82% in one year.

The value jumped from around $990,000 to $1.8 million.

In a Friday afternoon hearing, a county assessor showed how other lakefront properties — including ones that are smaller and harder to access — sold for $1.5 million last year.

Commissioners upheld the assessed value.

Though the owner remains unsatisfied with his property’s assessed value, he said he thinks the county’s process is fair.

“They listened to me,” he said.

A decision by the Board of Equalization is further appealable to the State Board of Tax Appeals.

In tax years 2019, 2020 and 2021, the State Board of Tax Appeals considered four appeals from Kootenai County residential property owners. The Kootenai County BOE’s decision was affirmed in three of four cases.