The worst Wisconsin attack on home owners that you have never heard of.

There is a bill sitting on Governor Doyle's desk awaiting signature that you have likely never heard of, 2007 AB 580.

Here is what it does.

Under current law if you disagree with your property tax assessment you have the right to a hearing in front of a local board on that issue. If you disagree with the ruling of that board you have the right to appeal to the Circuit Court.

Under the current situation people had a nasty habit of winning those appeals at the Circuit Court level. Well, the assessors got together and lobbied the legislature for changes to the current system and AB 580 was passed by a vote of 94 to 3 in the Assembly and 32 to 1 in the Senate.

Huge kudos to Senator Lazich, and Assemblymen Schneider and Albers for voting no on this (Gundrum and A.Williams no-voted the bill). Every other member of the Assembly and Senate voted in favor of the assessors and against home owners. You were probably asleep as this was one of those 12:46 am passed in the middle of the night laws that everyone misses.

And now the bad news...

Under AB 580 the review board must now grant a 60-day extension to the tax payers objection. The board also gets to assess a new snappy $100 fee to that rabble rousing tax payer (assuming the municipality allows the extension). A hundred bucks for disagreeing with the assessor, isn't that special!

Under the new bill the court is forced to make the assumption that the valuation by the assessor is correct.

You read that correctly, the court is forced by AB 580 to assume the assessor is correct. So much for the opportunity for a fair hearing in the Circuit Court. Our state government has legislated that the court favor the assessor.

The court finding may be "rebutted by a sufficient showing by the taxpayer that the valuation is
incorrect."

In short you do not go into court on an equal playing field, the assessment is assumed correct. So much for your fair day in court.

This is a terrible bill, read the details for yourself here. Perhaps one of you legal eagles can pull more out of this than I have shown.

Ask yourselves why you have never heard of this before?

Are assessments always fair? Should they be presumed to be correct?

Check out this story. An assessor in West Virginia increases the assessment on a property by a 1,531% increase after the owner refused to sell said property to the assessor.

Remember our report about my Racine assessment going up $10,000 year over year in a down market? That assessment had no basis in fact to the actual market.

Assessors are under huge pressure to increase property valuations so communities can draw in more tax revenue from those properties. Home owners always had their day in court. If the Governor signs this bill those home owners will enter any court appeal (after having paid a $100 fine) with the presumption that they are wrong hanging around their neck as a direct edict from the Wisconsin Legislature.

Democrats and Republicans banded together to pass this bad legislation.

Our only hope to stop this is the veto pen of Governor Jim Doyle. I encourage you to reach out to the Governor and ask him to please veto AB 580.


UPDATE: My Thanks to those who have picked up on this story:

Lake-Link
Texas Hold 'Em
Silent E Speaks
Badger Blogger
Boots and Sanders
Caledonia Unplugged
Fox Politics
Modern Commentaries
Spring City Chronicle
Wis Opinion
The World According to Nick