We had a client in 2009 that came to us late in the season regarding a six fold increase in his personal property tax. The client had rendered his property to Harris county and received a notice of value at about $12.5 million.. The notice was received by the same employee who prepared the rendition, who ignored it. When the tax bill arrived, we promptly received a call. Taxes had increased from $58,000 in 2008 to $over $360,000 in 2009. The client engaged us to straighten out the problem. The employee preparing the rendition had no knowledge of even basic property tax concepts, and rendered virtually every fixed asset on the books, plus inventory. Close examination revealed that even land and buildings had been rendered as personal property. Working with the Harris County Appraisal District, we were able to get the value and taxes back to the correct values.

Oftentimes clients think they can save a fee by doing their own property tax work. Sometimes it works, and many times it doesn't as was the case above. This is a very specialized business, and it takes years to develop the skills necessary to be successful with appeals and valuation. I would always recommend hiring a professional property tax consultant, and I certainly remember the days when I was a client, not a consultant.

One client's property taxes on personal property continued to increase year after year. Even though the property was being rendered, the assessor simply would not accept the valuation suggested by the rendition. We had suggested a fair market value approach to the client on several occasions, which he finally agreed to do in the year values jumped from $5 million to $12 million. The resulting appraisal indicated the property should be valued at about $1.9 million. In a settlement conference, the assessor cut the value to $2.5 million, and the client was very pleased. Tax savings were about $350,000 in this very high rate jurisdiction. http://www.campbellpropertytaxadvisors.com/