Time for a North Carolina geography quiz! In which counties are these cities located: Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh? If you said Orange County, Durham County, and Wake County, you are . . . only partially correct.  Each of those … Read more

How far will your tax office go to fix mistakes caused by taxpayers? Consider the situation in which a taxpayer mistakenly makes a payment on property owned by another party.  The tax office applies the payment as instructed.  Later, the … Read more

I’ve written several blog posts about how the pandemic might affect local taxes (here, here, here, and here), focusing mostly on negative economic news.  But there is at least one positive economic development from the pandemic that will impact property … Read more

How should the pandemic affect property tax values for 2021?  The answer depends on (1) whether the property is personal or real and (2) whether the county is conducting a real property reappraisal in 2021.  Read on for the details.

The social justice protests that erupted in many areas of the country this summer focused mostly on law enforcement.  But systemic bias can infect any area of government, even the seemingly objective world of property tax administration.  For proof, check … Read more

Interim budgets may provide breathing room for local governments wary of setting their 2020-2021 property tax before they know the full extent of how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the state and local economies. But interim budgets are not without … Read more

Local tax officials from across the state continue raise important questions about the pandemic.  I don’t have perfect answers to all of those questions, but I’ll do my best to respond to many of them in today’s post.  Please also … Read more

[Updated May 2020 to reflect the impact of the COVID-19 relief bill, S.L. 2020-3.] Tax administration is obviously not at the top of any local government’s list of pandemic concerns.   But social distancing and other remedial measures made necessary by … Read more

Anyone who has seen the Reese Witherspoon/Matthew Broderick classic high school satire Election knows that it is never a good idea for administrators to mess with student politics.  The recent mini-scandal out of Greenville suggests that at least a few … Read more

Consider this scenario: Carolina County conducts a reappraisal in 2018 in which Tommy TarHeel’s house is appraised at $300,000.  Tommy pays his 2018 and 2019 tax bills at that appraisal value without complaint. But in 2020 Tommy learns that back … Read more