State wants towns, taxpayers to work it out
August 10, 2008
Eagle Tribune
A new order requires local taxpayers and assessors to try to resolve differences before the taxpayers are given an appeal hearing before the state tax board.
The order seems to be working, at least from the state board’s perspective.
Melanie Ekstrom, deputy clerk for the Board of Tax and Land Appeals, said it has sent out about 300 letters to taxpayers and assessors this year, requiring the two parties to meet. About half of the cases have been settled or were withdrawn, she said.
“In effect, it got the parties to meet and communicate,” she said.
In the past, talks would often completely break down after a case was forwarded to the state board for a hearing, she said, even though assessors and taxpayers always have been encouraged to continue talking.
In some cases, it turned out, the disagreement between the town and property owner could have been resolved locally since their differences were so minor. Those differences include things like a mistaken recording on the property assessment card of the number of rooms in a house, she said.
A backlog of 1,200 cases — and long waits for taxpayer hearings — in January prompted the state board to require the local meetings, Ekstrom said.
Today, the state board has about 475 appeals pending, of which 420 are property tax appeals. The board’s four members are appointed to five-year terms by the state Supreme Court.
Ekstrom said both taxpayers and towns have told the board the new requirement is working.
Meanwhile, local assessing offices in Southern New Hampshire say the new requirement has yet to make much of a difference in the resolution of abatement denials.
Windham has six cases pending, which is not unusual, said assessor Rex Norman.
Still, Norman sees value in getting the two sides talking.
“Court is not always the best option,” he said.
Larger, more complicated cases may be bound for an appeal hearing regardless of whether the two parties are required to meet beforehand.
One pending case in Windham is over an abatement requested by The Commons at Windham Inc. for the 2006 tax year. The differences rest on the town’s $7.6 million assessment for the property, and the owner’s estimation of the property’s assessed value at $4.2 million.
The Commons was unable to meet the deadline for sitting down with the town, Norman said, so the case is headed to the state tax board. The two sides, however, plan to meet before it gets there and try to resolve differences, he said.
If the case is not resolved locally, it would be heard by the state board no sooner than March 2009, Norman said.
The new requirement hasn’t made a difference in Plaistow, said Marybeth Walker, assessor’s agent. But the town doesn’t have a large number of abatement cases, she said.
Pelham’s assessing assistant, Susan Snide, said she doesn’t know that the new requirement has made a difference locally.
The town settled three of 10 abatement cases filed for tax year 2006, she said.
Rick Brideau, assistant assessor for Londonderry, said the requirement is a good idea because it could save time and money for the town. It hasn’t yet this year — the town has had only two of those required meetings — but it could in the future.
A taxpayer can appeal a case to the state board or to Superior Court.
Ekstrom said the goal at the state tax appeal board is to get people talking and to resolve those cases that can be resolved.
And headway can be made even in those cases that have yet to be resolved.
“Regardless of whether they settle or not, they have narrowed the issues for when they come to the hearing,” Ekstrom said.