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As a taxpayer in the
City of Bay City, you are concerned about paying only your fair share of
taxes for services received.
In the Assessor’s
office, we are responsible for estimating the market value of every property
in the City. As we estimate the value of your property, we also make every
effort to assure that your assessment is equitable to similar properties.
Please feel free to contact the Assessor’s Office if you need assistance.
Assessment change
notices are issued in February each year. You will be able to appeal your
values during the first part of March. See your assessment notice for
details.
Let’s look at how
your concern and our responsibility interact:
It is a common
misconception that our office alone determines your tax bill. This is not
so. There are several different elements that enter into that formula and
our office is responsible for only one of those elements:
Assessed Value:
By State Statute, this is 50 percent of market value.
Market Value:
This is the price an informed buyer would pay and an informed seller would
accept in terms of cash for property exposed to the open market without
undue pressure on either party. Valuation day is December 31 of the
previous year.
State Equalized Value or
SEV:
This is your Assessed Value times the State Equalization Factor. This
factor is typically 1.0000. Therefore, your assessed value and state
equalized value are the same. This number would be something other than 1
if the level of assessment proves to be something other than 50 percent.
Mill:
$1 per thousand of Taxable Value.
The basic formula to
arrive at your tax bill is as follows:
Taxable Value x
Millage Rate = Tax Bill
Taxable Value (TV):
By State Statute, the taxable value is to be calculated based on the prior
year’s taxable value. It is last year’s taxable value times the Consumer
Price Index, or 5%, whichever is less. In 2001 this number was 3.2, and in
2000 it was 1.9, or a factor of 1.019.
Example: 2000
Taxable Value = $50,000
2001 Taxable Value =
$50,000 x 1.019 or
$50,950
Like everything,
there are exceptions to this rule. In this instance, the exceptions could
be that a sale occurred during the previous year (say 2000 in the example
above), or the property experienced new construction, or removal of
buildings. Your Assessor can explain these details further.
Millage Rate:
The millage rate is the total of all mills requested by various governmental
entities, and approved by voters. They consist of County, Intermediate
School District, Community College, Your School District, State Education
Tax, Library, Senior Millage, Mosquito, Dispatch, Medical Care, Historical
Society, Metro Transit and City. For residents with a homestead exemption,
this totaled 47.0501 mills for 2001.
For properties
without a homestead exemption, (most commercial, industrial and rental
properties), the millage rate was 65.0501 for 2001. For more information,
see your tax bill.
Example: $50,950 x
.470501 mills = $2,397
(47.0501
divided by 1,000 = .470501)
Again, there are
exceptions to this; notably agricultural property, or properties used for
agricultural purposes.
Homestead Exemption:
Exemption from
18 mills of tax for school operating. On a $100,000 home, this would save
the taxpayer $900 per year. This applies to all parcels owned that are
contiguous to your residence. A form must be filed once and will stay in
effect until rescinded. You are responsible to rescind if you no longer
own, or occupy, the residence.
Non-Homestead Status:
You will pay 18 mills of tax for school operating. This is paid by
businesses, people owning vacant land that is not adjacent to their
homestead, and other non-owner occupied properties.
Qualified Agricultural
Exemption:
Exemption from 18 mills of tax for school operating. Available to those who
primarily use the property and buildings for agricultural use. Property
does not need to be owner occupied or contiguous to an owner-occupied
parcel.
These are part of
Proposal “A”, which was approved by Michigan voters in 1994. In exchange
for an increase to 6 percent in the sales tax, we received a reduction in
our property taxes, some as much as 40%.
Our two major goals
are to arrive at an accurate market value estimate of your property, and to
assure that similar properties have similar assessed values.
Look at the assessed
value of your property. Be as objective as possible. If you believe that
the market would not support the Assessor’s estimate of value for your
property, or that your assessment is not equitable with others, please call
us.
We may ask you to
support your position by offering some evidence of the value you believe to
be correct, or by indicating the values of similar (comparable) properties.
We may also ask to schedule an interior inspection to aid us in our review.
When you call, we
will explain how we determined the value of your property, what the values
are on comparable properties and offer you whatever assistance we can.
The only issue we can
address with you is the value of your property; the issue of the amount of
your tax bill is not within the realm of our control. We will work with you
to ensure the fair and equitable assessment of your property.
There are two sets of
checks and balances in the assessment structure. The first check is at the
County level. The County performs sales and appraisal studies to determine
the level of assessment. It actually dictates to the assessing office the
amount of increase or decrease to be spread across the township, by class,
annually.
The second check is
by the State Tax Commission. The State, periodically, performs sales and
appraisal studies to check the County studies for accuracy.
The Assessor’s Office
is responsible for discovering, listing and assigning value to every
property within the jurisdiction. By law, the Assessor is required to
reassess each property in the city annually. Our office monitors all sales
and analyzes the local real estate market relative to economic conditions,
supply and demand factors, and other influences that affect value.
The Assessor’s Office
has a property record card indicating ownership and sale information as well
as property characteristics of every parcel in the city. The Assessor uses
the characteristics of your property in connection with the analysis of the
real estate market to estimate a market value, then an assessed and taxable
value for your property.
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