ALERT: #153
DATE: December 23, 2007
TO: Incline Village & Crystal Bay Property Owners
FROM: Village League Tax Revolt Committee

Dear Incline Village & Crystal Bay Property Tax Protesters,

Would you believe it was 5 years ago today when Ted Harris sent out the first Tax Revolt Alert? Ted Harris, plus many other people were up in arms when they received the annual “Christmas Postcard” from the Washoe County Assessor’s office. Most of the taxable value increases were in the 100% range from the previous year. All were all in shock. So what should be done?

Ted Harris and Les Barta asked Maryanne Ingemanson to try to help us resolve what we all thought was a straight-forward tax allocation problem. The thinking was that it would take approximately one year to unscramble what we saw as a severe non-communication situation with the Washoe County Assessor. LITTLE DID WE KNOW!!!

Five years ago, the dollars you paid in property taxes were directly calculated by multiplying the taxable value x 0.35 x the tax rate. So a 100% increase would mean a 100% increase in the dollars you would pay the following tax year.

The Village League hired an attorney to represent the taxpayers of Incline Village and Crystal Bay as a group, to fight for fair and equitable property tax assessments.

Rather than going into more details about the starting of our property tax revolt, you may find it more interesting to read the first few Alerts that were written by Ted Harris. Just visit the following web page and scroll to the bottom of the page. There you can read Alert #1, then #2 and so on.
http://www.nevadapropertytaxrevolt.org/pages/AlertArchives01-49.html

It is interesting to note that the issues then are the same issues today. We have made huge progress in fighting for fair and equitable property taxes; however, I am sorry to say that the battle is not over. We never anticipated the arrogance, the stubbornness, the deceitfulness, and the lack of empathy of the office of the Washoe County Assessor, the Department of Taxation, the State Board of Equalization and the Nevada Tax Commission.

The Nevada Supreme Court said it all in their first Order last December 28, 2006 which was unanimously in our favor. Hopefully, the next two cases that are now before Supreme Court, scheduled for hearings on January 7, 2008, will bring final closure to this long and extremely difficult struggle.

Best Regards,
Wayne Fischer, Webmaster
Nevada Property Tax Revolt Web
www.NevadaPropertyTaxRevolt.org

Village League to Save Incline Assets Board Members:

• Maryanne Ingemanson, President
  
• Dale Akers, Historian
  
• Les Barta, Law Research
  
• John Carney, Analyst
  
• Wayne Fischer, Webmaster
  
• Ted Harris, Tax Revolt Committee Chairman
  
• Todd Lowe, Financial,
  
• Chuck Otto, Public Relations

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