Concerned about higher ag land taxes? Public meeting goes down this week in Glasgow

With hundreds of appeals filed against higher ag land taxes, the Valley County commissioners have scheduled a public meeting on tax reappraisal. It will be held Thursday, Jan. 28, at 10:30 a.m. at the Cottonwood Inn. A Department of Revenue representative, Dallas Reese, and some people from the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service will explain the methodology of the ag land reappraisal that was done in 2009.

In Valley County, most homeowners are paying less than last year, but agricultural land rates went markedly higher, and landowners have filed about 1,700 AB-26 forms, requests for informal review, according to Allen Bunk, the Valley County assessor for the Montana Department of Revenue. Reviews are still being held by management staff in Helena.

Bunk said in the last 21 years he has dealt with maybe a dozen appeals. Now his office is looking at more than 500. Department of Revenue managers told him that only 2 percent of the state taxpayers have appealed their assessments. Twenty-seven percent of the appeals were in ag land and three north-central counties, Valley, Phillips and Blaine counties, have a large share of them.

Valuations were based on land classification and productivity. Most of the AB-26s in Valley County were filed to protest an increase in estimated productivity of ag land. A few properties in the county were assigned averages of 30 or 35 bushels per acre, whereas the county average is 24 bushels.

The ag land reassessments statewide were done with NRCS soil surveys to arrive at average grain yields, tons of hay per acre and grazing capacities. It was supposed to be scientific and objective and arrive at uniform results, but somehow these three counties came in higher than their neighbors.

Many landowners paid their taxes under protest. In Valley County, some 247 taxpayers protested taxes on about 540 parcels of land. They paid the whole tax, but usually they protested the amount in excess of last year's tax.

If taxpayers disagree with the decision on their informal review, they can appeal to the County Tax Assessment Board. Further appeal is possible to the State Tax Assessment Board - by either party, the taxpayer or the Department of Revenue. Beyond that is the possibility of appeal to a district judge.

"I hope something can be resolved before we get to tax appeals," Bunk said.

The protested taxes are held in an escrow fund until the review process is completed. About $250,000 is being held in escrow in Valley County, according to Valley County Commissioner Bruce Peterson, chairman of the commission. About one-third of it would have gone to the county, one-third to schools, and the rest to towns, the Weed District and the state and other agencies.

Peterson said that the protested taxes amount to less than 1 percent of the tax revenue of Valley County, which bills about $13 million.