By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
We talk a lot about property taxes here on KYMN, especially now as local governments are determining their budgets and setting the tax increases for next year. Two factors determine how much individuals and businesses pay in property taxes. First, the tax rates set by each local government (City, School District, and County). The second factor is the property’s value.
Rice County Tax Assessor Joshua Schoen stated that Minnesota has one of the most complicated tax systems in the nation, but that his office has a set of laws and rules that guide how they determine property values:
“So, if you go to buy a home, a mortgage company will hire an appraiser to do an appraisal to see if they can lend you that amount of money for what you’ve offered. And they’ll really zero in on the subject. Well, we do mass appraisal, so we enter all these sales in our system. We have all this information we’ve collected on all these properties. And then we run some models on what you know, where are areas that were overvalued, where areas that were overvalued, how was the market change from one year to the next” – Joshua Schoen, Rice County Tax Assessor, KYMN News Interview
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Schoen stated that every assessment must fall within 90% to 105% of comparable properties sold. He noted that county staff are also required to visit properties once every five years.
In November, each property taxpayer will receive an estimate in the mail of the maximum tax increase impact on their property. This estimate factors in the increase in market value.
However, Rice County property owners have another tool to learn more about their taxes: Beacon.
Beacon provides the tax information on each parcel of land in Rice County, as well as a history of the building (including sales, building permits, and taxes paid). With the sale prices of similar homes being the main factors in determining home value and taxes, Schoen said Beacon can help provide transparency for Rice County.
“Another reason might be, you know, somebody seen in the neighborhood, there’s been some sales of property, and they don’t suggest that their assessed value is the market. It might be something we would want to look at those sales.” – Joshua Schoen, Rice County Tax Assessor, KYMN News Interview
Will talk more in a future newscast about what exactly appealing your taxes means, the window to appeal your taxes has closed for this year, and it is in the spring. However, as we continue the discussion about property taxes in December, it may be worth taking some time on the Beacon website.
An example of a report from Beacon, at the Rice County Courthouse.
You can view Beacon here: https://beacon.schneidercorp.com/
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