Eagle County property owners knew their valuations had gone up several months ago. Every two years the State of Colorado requires Counties to re-assess local property values to reflect current actual valuations. Counties carry out this task and notify property owners of their actual valuations at the end of the appraisal period. These property owners then have a period of time to contest their valuations. No one was surprised to find that valuations have risen dramatically over the last two years in Eagle County - in some cases as much as 40% to 50%.
The problem came home to roost last month when tax bills were sent out. While most owners knew their valuations had gone up dramatically, the common understanding was that actual property tax increases were limited by state statute to a small percent per year due to a bill past several years ago by representative Doug Bruce. The “Bruce Bill” limited increases in tax collections to a small percentage per year no matter how much the actual valuation increased. Unfortunately, individual counties were given the the right to “De-Bruce” their tax billings by public vote and many counties, including Eagle County had off-year referendums authorizing this “de-bruseing”. Many voters did not understand the ramifications of approving these referendums - in fact, there are now no limits to how much the individual taxing districts can raise their individual mill levy requests. Thus, many local property owners are facing property tax increases of over 40% this year. Painful as it is to most local property owners, Eagle County Property Taxes are still very reasonable when compared to many other parts of the country.
For more information, please see the following link: http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20080218/NEWS/618114539
