Tax laws have power
While county officials seem to be hesitant in reassessing property within Washington County, we now have a new cancer growing – Clean and Green rollback taxes.
It is frightening to continue to read in the Observer-Reporter how our county officials ignore the full purpose of real estate tax regulations. Over the years, we have seen so many homes being built on lands that once were farmlands. Shopping centers continue to use many of these farmlands, as well as individual businesses. Acres of land have been sucked up for development and that is great for the county’s tax base. It is good for school districts and municipalities. It is good for the state. But it has not been so great for taxpayers who wanted to believe every change in a land’s use brought about proper taxation. Have rollback taxes been properly billed and collected?
Farmland, forestland and open spaces are referred to as Clean and Green. The dwellings on them are taxable, but the lands are taxed based on use values rather than fair market values, and ordinarily are a tax savings for the landowner. Use values are supplied to the county assessment office by the Department of Agriculture annually. The county has the option to implement these values or use lower values.
While the landowner makes the choice to be included in Clean and Green, he is subject to a penalty when the property changes use – seven years of rollback taxes at 6 percent interest per year. The rollback tax is the difference between what he paid on Clean and Green versus what he would have paid if the property had not been enrolled in Clean and Green. However, if the property has split-offs or separations, rollback taxes would only be due with respect to land split-off, such as two acres split-off to build another residence. Regulations have been amended recently to provide for oil and gas development with a limited rollback tax penalty. The taxes are only due with respect to those areas devoted to the activity, as determined by the county assessor.
Any time the government fails to uphold laws and ignores tax rules, the meaning of fairness has to be questioned. Within the last 10 years at least, we have heard of big bucks expected to come from slot machine profits, drilling operations and rollback taxes. A lot has been accomplished, but there is improvement to be expected. Tax laws have more power than the public believes.
Joann Diesel
Washington