Guest columnist
Yes, you can appeal for tax year 2010, even if you appealed 2009 and haven't had your hearing with the N.C. Tax Commission in Raleigh.
The deadline for appealing the 2010 property taxes is March 31. Get forms from the Orange County Tax Office and fill them out to start the process again. Keep copies for your files.
Last year there were at least 5,000 appeals of property tax values in Orange County. According to county Tax Collector Jo Robertson, about 3,000 values were lowered. There are several hundred headed for the N.C. Tax Commission, which has not heard all the appeals from Orange County that were filed for the previous year 2008. (Can you believe that, all of the 2008 appeals have not been heard!) Remember, you can appeal every year; otherwise you are stuck with that value for another four years or so.
And more news -- John Smith the tax assessor is gone, retired at the end of last year. He grossly overestimated property values based on values many months and years prior to the requirement of a Jan. 1, 2009 date. He knew he used misleading factors to determine many of those values. But instead of explaining the difficulty and owning up to what could be considered his gross malfeasance in office, he simply stonewalled, thereby leaving the county and its citizens in a mess.
He retired, snuck out without any fanfare at the end of the year." I am sure the "tax happy and spend wildly" County Commissioners feel greatly indebted to him for supporting them with over-inflated values and greatly inflated tax coffers. In fact, they are so grateful, would you believe that he is back in the Tax Office "consulting and assisting," presumably to solve the monumental mess he left there.
John Smith hid successfully behind "the presumption that county values are correct." It should be pointed out that District Attorney Mike Nifong had about the same presumption of correctness before he was run out of office. Nifong and Smith had the same responsibility to be fair and not abuse their powers.
Both failed miserably and both are equally guilty of hiding behind state statutes. I, frankly, also would like to see John Smith prosecuted for his overzealousness that cheated taxpayers out of money. Surely in the face of a declining economy, declining real estate market and rising unemployment he knew he was going beyond the bounds of common decency. What he did seems like a crime.
Let's remember it's the County Commissioners that really are responsible for this debacle. They were responsible for all the wild spending, John Smith's high salary and raises, and now, unbelievably, his re-employment for whatever reasons. All these lie at the feet of the County Commissioners, some of whom are in a primary and general election this year. And if you can't get justice through the tax appeals or courts of law, you always have the ballot box to sound off. In the meanwhile, appeal, appeal.
P H Craig is a real estate businessman and resident of Chapel Hill.
