Amendment to property tax bill would eventually create flat tax increase of 3 percent a year – Las Vegas Review-Journal

A new amendment to a bill modifying how annual property tax increases are calculated would eventually create a flat tax increase of 3 percent a year for residential properties.

The Nevada Association of Counties presented the bill on Thursday to the Assembly Committee on Taxation, giving the committee members something new to think about during their second hearing of the bill.

The amendment also scrubbed a previous idea to calculate annual property tax increases using a 10-year rolling average of the Consumer Price Index. Instead, the annual increase would be set using the old method, doubling the previous years CPI or finding the 10-year average for the growth rate of taxable home value, whichever is higher.

For Clark County and most of Nevadas other counties, NACO executive director Jeff Fontaine testified, that would mean a newly established floor of 2.6 percent in fiscal year 2018 on both residential and commercial taxes.

The floor could increase to a maximum of 3 percent, where it would become locked. It could not decrease.

Fontaine said he expected most counties would reach 3 percent in five years.

At that point, residential property taxes would increase by 3 percent annually, because their ceiling is set at 3 percent. Annual increases in commercial property tax would retain their ceiling of 8 percent.

The point of setting floors is to avoid a situation like Clark County had in fiscal year 2017. Under the current property tax laws, both commercial and residential property taxes increased by only 0.2 percent.

The intent here is to stabilize a revenue source that the counties and other government sources rely on, Fontaine said.

More than 15 people most representing city and county governments testified in support of the bill, saying it would bring predictability to property tax revenues for local governments.

Lorinda Wichman, a Nye County commissioner and NACO executive committee member, said her county has reduced its staff by a quarter and eliminated services not required by law, such as subsidies to veteran services and animal shelters.

This amendment would allow counties to plan ahead when considering their budgets, she said.

About 10 people spoke against AB43, contending that an increaseed floor of 3 percent a year would hurt citizens, especially those living on a fixed income or enduring a financial hardship.

Were concerned about the fact that if you stabilize these taxes which may be good for government that for us when our incomes go down, (the tax) never goes down. It goes up every year, said Janine Hansen, state president of Nevada Families for Freedom.

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.

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Amendment to property tax bill would eventually create flat tax increase of 3 percent a year - Las Vegas Review-Journal