(Bannock County Assessor’s Office, December 6, 2023; Cover photo credit: Bannock County)
It’s absolutely amazing to me that it’s already December, and the end of the year is here. It’s hard to believe I’ve been in office for almost a full year.
Now that it is December, we are getting ready to mail our subsequent roll assessment notices and occupancy roll notices, which are assessment notices for parcels that we missed improvements on (new houses or outbuildings), as well as any new construction that was occupied after January 1st of 2023. Those should be going out this week or early next week. The due date to appeal those assessments is January 9, 2024. Call us or stop by our office anytime with questions or to appeal your assessment.
The Treasurer’s Office sent out tax bills last week, and they are very busy taking payments—which are due December 20, 2023. Tax bills were a little late this year due to legislative changes that helped reduce homeowners’ taxes (more on this below). However, it took longer than expected to program the changes for the computers to be able to generate the tax notices.
This time of year, the Assessor’s Office always has more visitors as people come to pay their taxes. Often, we find people who didn’t review their assessment notices in June and are questioning why their value went up. Unfortunately, at this time of year, we can’t change values because the deadline to appeal was the 4th Monday in June. That’s why it is so important to look at your assessment notice: once the tax notice is generated, there is nothing that we can do. Values are set in June, and all the taxing districts’ budgets, as well as the levee, are set based on those values. However, our appraisers are more than willing to review your appraisal and make any changes necessary for 2024.
We also have been busy with the Board of Tax Appeals (BTA). The BTA is the State’s version of the Board of Equalization. If you appealed your property’s assessed value to the Board of Equalization but were not satisfied with their decision, you had 30 days to file an appeal with the State Board of Tax Appeals. About 20 people (out of 300) appealed their values to the BTA this year. We expect to have the BTA’s decisions in March or April of 2024.
This month, our appraisal assistants and I will take a course about the Property Tax Reduction (PTR) program, formerly known as the “circuit breaker” program. In this course, we’ll learn about any changes to the program and review last year’s PTR program. Then, in January, we will begin informing people about this program again and hopefully get more people on the program. This was one of my first priorities when I came into office 11 months ago, and I’m proud to say that we successfully raised the application count by 200. I hope to have even more applicants for this program in 2024.
I really hope that you are enjoying your month and are ready to see a new year come in. Merry Christmas to you all, and I hope your holidays are memorable for each one of you.
Anita Hymas
Bannock County Assessor
