How to Protest
| |
| |
| How to Protest | |
| Your most important right as a taxpayer is your right to protest to the appraisal review board (ARB). You may protest if you disagree with any of the appraisal district’s actions concerning your property. You may discuss your objections about your property value, exemptions and special appraisal in a hearing with the ARB, an impartial panel of your fellow citizens. Most appraisal districts will informally review your protest with you to try to resolve your concerns. Check with your district for details. If you lease property and are required by the lease contract to pay the owner’s property taxes, you may appeal the property’s value to the ARB. You may make this appeal only if the property owner does not, however. This appeal right applies to leased land, buildings and personal property. The appraisal district will send the notice of appraised value to the property owner, who is required to send a copy to you. If you appeal, the ARB will send any subsequent notices to you. State law prohibits the Comptroller’s office from advising a taxpayer, appraisal district or appraisal review board about a protest. State law also prohibits the Comptroller from intervening in a protest. What is an ARB? |
| | |||||||||
| An ARB is a group of citizens authorized to resolve disputes between taxpayers and the appraisal district. The appraisal district's board of directors appoints ARB members. Members must be residents of the appraisal district for at least two years to serve. Current officers and employees of the appraisal district, taxing units and the Texas Comptroller's office may not serve. In counties with populations greater than 100,000, former directors, officers and employees of the appraisal district cannot serve on an ARB. Some other specific Tax Code restrictions also apply. ARB members also must comply with special state laws on conflict of interest. The ARB determines taxpayer protests. The ARB also decides issues that a taxing unit may challenge about the appraisal district’s actions. In taxpayer protests, it listens to both the taxpayer and the chief appraiser. The ARB determines if the appraisal district has acted properly. ARB decisions are binding only for the year in question. ARB hearings begin around May 15. The ARB should complete most of the hearings by July 20. ARB meetings are open to the public. Notices of the date, time and place of each meeting must be posted at least 72 hours in advance at the appraisal district office and the county clerk’s office. The ARB’s hearing procedures must be posted in a prominent place in the room in which hearings are held. ARBs typically meet at the appraisal office; generally, they do not have their own staffs or offices. The chief appraiser must publicize annually the right to and methods for protesting before the ARB, in a manner designed to effectively notify all district residents. The ARB by rule will provide for hearing times on evenings or on Saturdays or Sundays. Should you protest? The ARB must base its decisions on evidence. It hears evidence from both the taxpayer and the chief appraiser. Protest issues that an ARB can consider include:
The ARB will notify you at least 15 days, based on the notice’s postmark date, in advance of the date, time and place of your hearing. Try to discuss your protest issue with the appraisal office in advance. You may work out a satisfactory solution without appearing before the ARB. If you can show good cause, the ARB may postpone your hearing. Or, the chief appraiser can agree to a postponement. You must appear at a hearing (in person, by affidavit or through an agent) or you may lose your right to judicial review. At least 14 days before your protest hearing, the appraisal district will send you:
When you present your protest to the ARB, you may appear in person; send someone whom you authorize in writing to appear in your behalf; or send a sworn affidavit with evidence to support your protest. (See Appointing an Agent.) You may contact the appraisal district or the Comptroller’s office for an affidavit form, but you need not use this form. If your letter contains all the information required, you may have your letter notarized and send it to the appraisal review board.
If you file a notice of protest before the ARB approves the appraisal records, you are entitled to a hearing only if the board decides that you had good reason for failing to meet the deadline. If you don’t file a notice of protest before the ARB approves the appraisal records, you lose your right to protest. You also lose the right to file a lawsuit about the taxable value of your property. If your protest is late because the chief appraiser or ARB failed to mail a required notice of appraised value or a denial of exemption or agricultural appraisal, you may file your protest any time before the taxes become delinquent. You must pay some current taxes before the delinquency date to be entitled to this type of hearing. A notice of appraised value is not always required. In some cases, you may file with the ARB to correct an error even after these deadlines. Contact your appraisal district or the Comptroller’s office if you have questions about clerical errors, substantial value errors, double taxing or other possible errors. What should you do about errors found after the filing deadline? The law provides for late ARB hearings to correct errors, including property appraised more than a third above its correct value. Property owners must file a written request and meet certain requirements for the ARB to grant a late hearing on an approved value. For the current and previous five tax years, the ARB may correct a clerical error, multiple appraisal of a property or inclusion of nonexistent property on the appraisal roll. A “clerical error” is a mistake in writing, copying, transcribing or entering data, but not in reasoning or judging a value. “Multiple appraisal,” also called double taxation, is taxing the same property more than once in the same tax year. “Nonexistent property” is property that does not exist at the location or in the form described in the appraisal roll. For the current tax year, the ARB may grant late hearings to correct certain over appraisals; correct values based on a joint motion of the property owner and chief appraiser; and hear from owners who weren’t sent a required notice. Such late hearings require property owners to file written requests before the delinquency date of February 1. Before an ARB decision on a late hearing can take place, the owner must pay some current taxes, usually those not in dispute. If the owner wins a value reduction in a late ARB hearing, the taxing units will refund the difference in the tax payment and the correct amount of taxes. For an over appraisal hearing to take place, the property must not have had an ARB hearing and determination earlier in the year. The owner must show that the approved appraised value exceeds the correct value by more than a third. If the owner proves that the value is in error but less than one-third wrong, the ARB may not order a value reduction. If the owner proves at least a one-third error, the ARB will reduce the value. The owner will pay a 10 percent penalty based on the taxes on the correct value for the late filing. For a joint motion hearing, the ARB must approve a change when the property owner and chief appraiser have agreed to the change in writing. Following rules adopted by the ARB, the chief appraiser may change the appraisal roll at any time to correct any inaccuracy that does not increase the amount of tax liability. Should you appeal to district court? Once the ARB rules on your protest, it will send you a written order by certified mail. If you are dissatisfied with the ARB’s findings, you have the right to appeal its decision to the state district court in the county in which your property is located. You should consult with an attorney to determine if you have a case. Within 45 days of receiving the written order (when you sign for the certified mail, in other words), you must file a petition for review with the district court. You also are required to make a partial payment of taxes, usually the amount of taxes that aren’t in dispute, before the delinquency date. You may ask the court to excuse you from prepaying your taxes; to do so, you must file an oath attesting to your inability to pay the taxes in question and argue that prepaying the taxes restrains your right to go to court on your protest. The court will hold a hearing and decide the terms or conditions of your payment. At the district court, you may ask to have your appeal resolved through arbitration, by a jury or by a judge. | | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
Top