Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Just wanted to give you a chance to, in your own words, tell us why the department had asked for this new language.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Sure thing. Yes. Jill Remick, director of property evaluation and review at the tax department. I was not able to listen in, but other folks at the tax department did. So I got a little flavor. But yeah, so these are a few miscellaneous tax bill items that we're seeking. None of them are particularly massive in impact or scale, hence the miscellaneous tax bill. The land use change tax piece is sort of a two part thing. You may recall we sort of given up the attempt at trying to figure out a different way to do land use change tax. But what does happen currently, which is still very much a problem, is, when there is a portion of a parcel being developed, that requires per statute a standalone valuation to be done by the local lister assessor. And there are enough times that it's come to our attention that we are not able to get that back within thirty days, which is the statutory deadline. So we sort of have a process where we send out reminder emails. We send out a second reminder email. We make phone calls, all because the land use change tax cannot be calculated until we get that valuation because the land use change tax is 10% of that valuation. So what we're asking for is if after those attempts and it's not obviously, it's not intentional. There's a lot of listers and assessor offices that are very part time or are vacant. And land use change tax is not something that comes up as part of their regular processes. They may have years where they never have a current use parcel get changed. So in the instances where we're not able to get that information, we're just asking for there to be this possibility that we just set that value so that we can issue the land use change tax bill because it's impacting real estate transactions, removing removing a lien from the land, that can have an impact on what folks' plans are for that property. And in association with that, ask and again, we don't want to do this, and we don't want to have to do this. But we have several every year where we just sort of continue to ask and it really impedes the process for the taxpayer. We're not looking for run day 31. If we don't hear from the lister, that's it. We're going to go out and value the property. But this is like, if after multiple attempts, we genuinely can't reach somebody. We'd like to have some way to get a number to somebody so that they know what their liability is. So associated with that, another reason why this There's another section of this related to the appeal process. So right now, because that valuation is meant to be done at the local level, that valuation appeal is appealable to the local listing or assessing office. And right now that window of appeal is only fourteen days, which we're finding across the tax department, fourteen day window for mail in in and of itself is becoming really challenging. So what happens is an individual might get their valuation from their municipality, what their land exchange tax will be based on. They'd like to appeal it. They submit appeal to the tax department. By the time it gets to us right now, it's past that fourteen day window and we can't, they can't appeal the correct way. So we actually have to dock at the appeal and then deny their appeal. So we were asking if that could be extended thirty days so that when current use gets these and they've come to the wrong place, that we can still give that taxpayer an opportunity to appeal through the appropriate channels. And so then the other piece is, the land use change tax that's collected. The municipality retains 50% up to $2,000, And then the amount that's collected above and beyond that, is sort of split in our system, 75% education fund and 25% general fund, I think. So in another way to try to sort of, incentivize the timely evaluation of these, that we would say in the event that after these multiple attempts, PBR had to do the evaluation ourselves, then we would not remit that $2,000 to the municipality. Again, we do not want to have to do this. This is just having a backup plan if that doesn't happen. I think there might have been a question about the $2,000 itself. If the municipality should be retaining more or anything like that. Right now we collect whatever is collected and we automatically 50% up to $2,000 We do all that work in our system. Okay. I think that's the land use change tax portion. Yeah. And I've come before this committee before trying to figure out a different way to sort of automate it, find a way to use rates or a table. I've had FPR in here, right? We've tried to figure out a way to basically get these figures to taxpayers immediately without requiring this kind of human intervention. And there's just it's just not as easy as real estate is a fickle beast and different parcels have very different values and it requires someone who knows what they're looking at to make that valuation. So this is a pretty minor piece. Again, it's not the end of the world, but it would provide us that opportunity to help the taxpayer get the answer after we've tried multiple attempts to get them an answer.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Greg? You said, so if you fail to get an answer from Windsor, then you'll make a decision

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: on how

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we don't stop.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: No, because we have updated valuation and enrollment information on each parcel and portion of the parcel, I am guessing what we would do is our district advisors who are sort of local municipal assessment support folks who are their professional assessors and they do the equalization study, that the district advisor for that town would look at together with me the file and what we have on the parcel. We could estimate it or come up with a value or use the town's land schedule and come up with a value, then I would have their help in doing that. Really hoping we don't have to do that much. But yeah, it would be Again, it sort of removes The ideal, as far as the accuracy evaluation would still be to have the local assessing officials do that. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Thank you. Jill, you have two groups of professionals working with a lot of these splits and parcels. You have lawyers and you have real estate agents. Are they of any help to help get this spurred along? I mean, there's not always a real estate agent involved, but there's usually, probably always a lawyer.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah. They're often who we hear from. You know, they're trying to help make this closing happen or they're trying to and I suppose they would necessarily know, oh, I actually need to talk to the lister or assessor to get them. I that's what we tell them. We say, this is why we don't have a number for you. But yeah, they're usually the ones that are asking or, yeah. But we can, you know, maybe over time too, like we can sort of cut back on the delays and sort of understand where these things go. I will say if this becomes something that that had a question, I think, and means was like, well, what if they end up having to do this a lot? Then we would need to come in here and have a different conversation because this is definitely not something we'd have the capacity to do, don't wanna do.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: There's also the grazing.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yes, grazing.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: I know we've only got about three minutes here. There were some questions about that. I think we understand what the intent is. But does the committee have any questions about that? And maybe just whether in fact this has been happening, but there's somebody Where did this come from?

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah, this came from I only know of one appeal. And again, these are not deal breaker. This is not something that I'm feeling really emphatic that must be corrected. But we had one appeal wherein an individual and again, this is not for expanding eligibility. This is for demonstrating that gross income from crops. So if I'm having someone Hey, my property and I sell that hay and I make $2,000 or more that currently is eligible. But if the cow comes and eats the grass right off the land, then that's not eligible. So that was kind of the scenario was like, but again, it's, it has to meet that. This is only to meet this sort of demonstrating gross income of $2,000 or more.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. For the person who led the cows farmer.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah. Right. So very much the land is being grazed by cows. That's livestock. In any other sort of context, if it five acres, that would not be an issue. But in order to demonstrate the $2,000 from the revenue of that agreement, I don't know how many acres or how many livestock you would need to meet $2,000 of income, but we had one scenario that was an appeal that felt kind of common sense wise. But it was written definitely by attorneys, like, really to keep this for the grazing head. You know?

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: It is an intended to cover all the equine as well as

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: Yeah. That would be livestock. So that would still fall under it. But again, it's about basically meeting that tooth. So if somebody if I had acreage and I was getting paid by a horse owner or a llama owner or anybody to graze on my property right now, I would not be able to benefit from current use. But if I'm getting $2,000 of pay for that most of the time, these are kind of like agreements between neighbors or an, you know, an in kind agreement. But there there was one example that came up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There was a sentiment that, honestly, having your land grazed, which I've had it done by neighbors, and not having it cut is of value, it's a cost saving for otherwise, you'd be brush hard and burn a lot of diesel and cost you a lot of money. So Right. It helps your neighbor, and it and it helps you whether there's any dollars exchanged. Mhmm.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: It's interesting point, and maybe something we ought to think about and talk about a little bit more. But just in terms of maybe providing some equity for whether it's this one case, maybe it'll never happen again. But I think it's not unreasonable.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: And I do think this also, in addition to that, I think it was something the agency of agriculture would definitely want to come in on because I think they were advocating for this as well. Okay. I think those were the only current use related miscellaneous tax returns.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, I have more, but Okay.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: You can go back and watch the tape and here's a ribbon at Nelson's.

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: I heard about bees. Were you the bee?

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: No, that was John.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: He would structure

[Jill Remick, Director of Property Valuation & Review, Vermont Department of Taxes]: it. Certainly. Okay. Alright, you.

[Committee Chair (unidentified)]: Thank you. We're all sis. Thank you very much. Thank you. See everybody tomorrow, nine