Board of Review Appeals
INFORMATION FOR TAXPAYERS CONCERNING
PROPERTY ASSESSMENTS APPEALS TO THE
BOARD OF REVIEW
Appeals from real property assessments made by the Real Property Assessment
Division are provided for in Chapter 5A of the Kauai County Code. However,
taxpayers are not generally aware of the responsibilities placed on them when
they do file an appeal to the Board of Review.
The Board of Review
believes it would be helpful to taxpayers if they were better able to understand
their obligations in this regard. Considerable time of taxpayers and board
members could be saved if taxpayers were aware of the requirements which must be
met in presenting their "case" at appeal hearings.
The county of Kauai is
required by
Chapter5A of the Kauai County Code, to assess all real property in its
entirety.
A taxpayer who files an appeal is obliged to present "proper
evidence" to the Board of Review in support of the appeal at the scheduled
hearing. The law clearly provides that the assessment made by the Director of
Budget and Fiscal Services is presumed to be correct. This means that every
person who appeals must show by "proper evidence" that the assessed value made
by the director is incorrect. One way of doing this is for the taxpayer to prove
that the property value stated in the appeal is correct. Unless "proper
evidence" is presented, the board must decide in favor of the Director's
assessment.
Some examples of "proper evidence" are: sales of similar
properties or construction cost estimated of the replacement cost of the
improvements by an experienced licensed contractor or cost estimator if
improvement valuations are appealed. While sales of similar properties are
"proper evidence", sales transactions between relatives, close friends, and
persons with close business relationships are usually not considered "proper evidence." The fact that a nearby property is assessed lower than that
of the property under appeals not sufficient evidence of itself for the Board to
lower an assessment. The Real Property Assessment Division uses comparable sales
up to one year preceding the assessment date of October 1, to set the
assessments. Comparable sales of properties should come from that period of
time.
The personnel of the Real Property Assessment Division are always
willing to answer questions and review assessment problems with property
taxpayers. In most instances, these discussion result in a clearer understanding
of standards and practices utilized by the Division in providing a relatively
high degree of fairness in Hawaii's property assessments.
Tax
Appeal Court
Tax
Rates