From the Lafayette Journal & Courier:
Lafayette attorney Jeff Cooke is on a mission to find out exactly how the Tippecanoe County assessor’s staff calculates and sets values on property.
Those assessed values help determine local government tax rates, and ultimately figure into each property owner’s tax bill
Cooke appeared Thursday before the county’s Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, and presented his case to have the 2013 assessment of his law office building in the 300 block of Columbia Street reduced.
What prompted Cooke to appeal was a document dated Dec. 30 from the assessor’s office notifying him that the assessment on his building had increased by $113,400 from a previous assessment notice he received in August.
Cooke wants to know why the assessment jumped from $161,900 in August to $275,300 in December. Specifically, he asked to see the data that was entered into IncomeWorks, a software program the county uses to calculate assessed values on commercial buildings.
He got an explanation of sorts from Jesse Wallenfang, an employee in the assessor’s office. He explained three methods of assessing commercial property: cost approach, sales trending and income approach.
The $161,900 was based on the cost approach. The higher December figure was calculated by IncomeWorks using an income approach, that is, what the property potentially could generate as rent-producing property.
“We believed the form that went out (in August) was in error,” Wallenfang said.
“We do not have good trending value in IncomeWorks, so we went back to the original assessment you appealed to let us get this back on track for a correct assessment.”
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See the full article here:
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2014303060043
