Meck Deck readers are about a year ahead of the rest of the county in understanding that Mecklenburg County’s property tax revaluation comes at a bad time. Property values are tanking just as the county revalues, meaning that property owners run the very real risk of paying tax on values far above actual market value.
In addition, the reval process even in the best of times locks in a higher property tax bill if the county commission refuses to lower the property tax rate. So there are two distinct issues here. How to handle phantom values and how to handle higher property tax bills.
Delaying the reval as some Republican commissioners now suggest handles the first issue, but not the second. Democrats just want to pretend there is no issue at all. Parks Helms is, as usual, 1000 percent wrong when he says this matter is just political. No, no it is not.
Helms and Jennifer Roberts and crew had hoped that the reval would build-in a property tax revenue windfall, one that would go more or less unnoticed by most property taxpayers reveling in ever-increasing home values and general boom times. Oops.
Republicans have belatedly noticed this disconnect between fiscal plans and reality, hence the push to delay the reval. But monkeying around with the five-year cycle sets a bad precedent and will likely cost the county more administrative money. That is why resolving the cut the property tax rate to a revenue-neutral number is the way to go. This would allow taxpayers to escape the tax wallop of phantom values while giving them time to appeal too-high valuations. In fact, the market should stabilize by the reval in 2013, which is another reason keep the five-year cycle intact.
Besides, it is very telling that all the Democratic at-large county commission candidates continue to duck my simple question on the reval and a revenue-neutral tax rate. They clearly fear the issue.
Bonus Observation: There is a nascent tax rebellion simmering in Cabarrus County over this very question of higher taxes on phantom values. Cabarrus revalued last year and now folks — Democrat and Republican — are wondering why they are paying tax on values 20 to 40 higher than they can sell for on the open market.
