Property value assessment appeals plummet

COEUR d’ALENE — Significantly fewer Kootenai County property owners have appealed their 2023 value assessments than last year, when a flood of appeals forced the county to ask the state for more time to complete them.

A total of 87 appeals were filed this year, compared to more than 700 appeals in 2022. This is closer to years past, when the number of appeals ranged between 76 and 81.

Kootenai County Assessor Béla Kovacs attributed the lower volume, in part, to a market in which commercial property valuations are still rising and residential valuations are leveling out.

“I think part of the reasoning is definitely a different market,” he said Thursday.

Communications coordinator Jonathan Gillham said the county has made an effort to push educational material about Idaho’s property tax system, which may have contributed to the lower number of appeals compared to last year.

“A lot of people paid attention to that,” he said.

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

In this system, taxing districts like cities and counties set their budgets. For the levy rate, budgets of all taxing districts are totaled and divided by the sum of all property values within the boundaries of the districts.

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.

Gillham recalled one property owner whose tax bill decreased by 6.3%, while their property value assessment rose 50%.

When property owners appeal to the Board of Equalization, Idaho law stipulates that the assessed value is assumed to be correct. That means the burden is on the appellant to prove the assessment is incorrect.

It’s a high bar to clear. No valuations had been overturned as of Thursday afternoon. Monday is the state deadline for counties to complete appeals. Kootenai County is on track to finish by then.

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

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