What Does It Take To Lower Your Property Taxes?
Every year it seems like the tax man wants to juice you for as much money as it can possibly get out of you. After all the hard work you do to be successful in whatever business you do and to have a decent home to live in, your tax agency seems to want to punish your success by grabbing more and more of your money the better you do in life. Is there anything you can do to cut down on how much money you have to give up to the tax man? Fortunately, there are things you can do that can often lower how much property taxes you are required to pay. Here are a few things to look out for.
File a Property Tax Appeal
One of the most effective things you can do to reduce how much property taxes you are required to pay is to file a property tax appeal with your tax agency. A property tax appeal essentially tells your tax agency that you contest the value at which your property has been evaluated. Since your property taxes are directly related to how much your property is deemed to be worth, a change in the assessed value of your property will affect the taxes you are required to pay.
Property Taxes
Support Your Appeal With Evidence
While the first step to reducing your property taxes is to file an appeal, don’t expect the tax agency to simply take your word for it that they made an assessment error. If it were as easy as that, everyone would contest their property assessments every year. You have to demonstrate that the assessment of your property was actually exaggerated. Look into the values of properties in your home town or neighborhood that are similar to yours to see how their assessed values relate to yours. It also helps to compare other properties in your area compare to similar properties in other areas. Often you can make a case that, while properties like yours in some areas are high, most properties in your area are actually assessed lower generally.
Don’t Waste Time
If you want to have a reasonable chance of reducing your property taxes, you need to start as soon as you get the notice of your property’s value from your assessor. Once the tax bill goes out, you usually only have from a month to forty-five days to file your appeal. And you will need much of that time to research area properties and to go over all the paperwork to ensure that all details are properly filled out.
The one thing to keep in mind when appealing your property taxes is not to expect miracles. Most taxing agencies are not really trying to jilt you. Their assessors are doing the best they can, and they usually do a good job. Chances are that the value that your property has been assessed at is fairly accurate. If so, it is unlikely that you will convince the taxing agency to reduce your assessment. But it does not hurt to try if you think you have a legitimate case.
Article is written by Jet Russell. Jet Russell is a full time blogger and Internet Entrepreneur.
