Whatchamacolumn: Property tax summary provides feast of numbers
My occasional obsession with numbers is well fed every October by the annual Yamhill County property tax summary. And Yamhill County Assessor Derrick Wharff always contributes enough extra analysis to make the report even more newsworthy.
This year, for example, Wharff reminded us that taxpayers actually have until Dec. 15 to make their first payment without penalty or interest — a grace period approved by the Legislature last year. You do, however, still lose the 3% discount for paying in full — or 2% discount for paying two-thirds — by Nov. 15.
Those discounts, unchanged for many years, are less valuable if you can earn higher interest by investing unpaid tax amounts while making three tax payments over six months. I actually calculated — and here’s a challenge to you math wizards out there to confirm — that paying two-thirds of your taxes on Nov. 15 is the best alternative if you can make over 7% on the delayed payment amounts.
This year, the Assessor’s Office — and the newspaper — received considerable comment about tax bills that exceeded the normal 3% increase for McMinnville and Newberg property owners. Both cities increased 2024-25 tax rates that previously were reduced when municipal fire departments were moved into individual special taxing districts.
It’s likely that property tax bills going out just before the November election had an impact on some local elections for city council positions. It’s more than likely that the city of McMinnville plans to make further tax rate increases that will be subject to much discussion in coming months.
Another area of taxpayer interest, and misunderstanding, involves five urban renewal districts in Yamhill County. It still is confusing when property tax bills, as required by the state, show payments to urban renewal districts as if they are new, increased taxes on property, when actually those payouts reflect proportionate reductions in payment to other taxing districts.
Here are a few numbers that caught my eye in the Yamhill County 2024-25 Property Tax Summary report:
Number of taxing districts: 44, including the county, five urban renewal districts, one parks district, two colleges, two education service districts, and 11-each cities, school districts and fire districts.
Total market value of property, $28.61 billion; total taxable value, $12.06 billion; total taxes, $181.91 million.
Recipients of property taxes: public schools 41.64%; cities and urban renewal 18.02%; county 17.23%; fire district 12.05%; community colleges 5.19%; park and recreation 3.01%; ESDs 1.94%; other 0.91%.
The full summary, including details about types of property tax exemptions and existing bond debt by taxing district, can be found at: tinyurl.com/YC2024taxsummary.
That information, and much more, can be found on the Assessor’s Office website at yamhillcounty.gov/assessor. And for people wanting ground-level information about any property parcel in the county, including owner, appraisals, taxes and sales history, there is a link to search blocks that can extract those individual reports by entering nothing more than the property street address number.
It almost makes Oregon’s complicated property tax system understandable. Almost!
Jeb Bladine can be reached at jbladine@newsregister.com or 503-687-1223.
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