Why do assessments only seem to go up?

I began reading Shanti Hahler’s August 4 article, “Property Tax Assessments Soar” with expectations of yet another litany on cost escalations. While the article was certainly that, it was much more. There seemed to be prescribed a blind acceptance of whatever the assessor sends your way.

The quadrennial physical reassessments re-evaluate your property with an eye out for those things which increase the value. What of aging, failed maintenance and other elements of a property’s devaluation? Is there any attention paid to those items which reduce a site’s usability, marketability and value? We are confidently assured that, during intervening years, “valuations go up using a mathematical formula.” Seems to be a predestination of which way assessed valuations will go. And, of course, anything based on a mathematical formula is OK.

It would be interesting to see if there is, in fact, any site-specific relationship between assessed valuation and the market value on which it is said to be based. While the article uses various and inconsistent terminology, it would seem that property tax revenues must be skyrocketing.

This, in a time when governments are said to be strapped for cash and looking for ways to make ends meet. Have they found a way through presumptuous assessment and compliant property owners?

Stanwood

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