Assessment delays unlikely to have much revenue impact | READER COMMENTARY

Real impact in delayed assessments could be fairness to property owners, not in local governments getting shortchanged.

The Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation and state legislators are not being honest about the impact of SDAT’s failure to send assessment notices to owners of about 107,000 properties (“Maryland failed to send 107,000 property reassessment notices on time, potentially costing counties millions,” Feb. 22).

If the legislators don’t implement a workaround, tax revenue will not necessarily be impacted. If the legislators do implement a workaround, tax revenue still may not be impacted. That’s because the property tax rate in each jurisdiction is set based on the total taxable assessed value of properties in that jurisdiction. If the total taxable assessed value goes down, then the jurisdictions just raise the property tax rate enough to meet budgetary requirements. In most jurisdictions, the tax rate is adjusted every year.

The true impact of SDAT’s error (if the legislature doesn’t implement a workaround) is that the owners of properties that didn’t get their assessment notice on time will pay a proportionately lower amount of taxes and the rest of the property owners will pay proportionately more taxes.

The SDAT director and the legislators surely know this, but they won’t talk about it unless someone asks.

— Louis Wilen, Olney

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