Tax Appeals Swamp U.S. Cities, Towns as Property Prices Plunge

Jeff Green and Tim Jones
Bloomberg

The backlog of cases from taxpayers seeking to lower property-tax bills of more than $100,000 shot up to 14,236this year from an annual average of about 6,000 during the past decade. The backlog of smaller claims was at28,558 at the end of September, eight times higher than a decade ago, according to records at the tribunal, a Lansing-based administrative court.

From Los Angeles to Atlantic City, the New Jersey gambling resort whose credit rating Moody’s Investors Service cut by three levels last month, property owners are demanding lower taxes after real-estate values plunged. The disputes over billions in dollars come as municipalities are already slashing services such as police and fire protection and may depress revenue further as communities try to recover from the longest recession since the 1930s. InMichigan, Governor-elect Rick Snyder has warned that hundreds of towns face financial crises.

“We’re just getting swamped,” said Halm, 54, who was appointed in 2003. “We’re constantly buying new file cabinets to hold all the cases. We even have six surplus file cabinets in the courtroom.”

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Cash-strapped governments ramping up tax-collection efforts

Markham Heid
Washington Examiner

Tax officials throughout the Washington region are trying new and often extraordinary measures to collect tens of millions of dollars in delinquent payments, as huge projected budget deficits threaten to slash public services.

Together, Washington-area localities are owed more than $40 million in overdue real estate taxes from fiscal 2010 alone. Additional millions in unrecovered fines, fees and personal property tax revenues compound those shortfalls.

They say they have been able to maintain historically high collection rates, but only by resorting to unusually aggressive collection methods.

"We give people appropriate notice, but if they ignore us, we'll just drive out to their house and remove their car from their driveway. That's an attention getter," said Arlington County Treasurer Frank O'Leary.

O'Leary said he has used such tactics in the past, but lately has encountered a startling new phenomenon.

"This year I sent my people out to collect some vehicles, and they came back and said the properties had been abandoned," O'Leary said. "That had never occurred in Arlington in all the years I'd been treasurer, and it was really sobering to hear that."

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