More than twice as many property owners appealed their tax assessments this year than last year, according to the 2022 report of the county Real Property Tax Board of Review.
The five-member volunteer board, which devotes long hours evaluating property owners’ appeals of their assessments, reported 835 appeals on property totaling $2.8 billion in real estate value, compared to 345 appeals in 2021. Of the latest appeals, 454 were filed on East Hawaii property and 381 on parcels in West Hawaii.
Of the 835 total appeals, 537 assessments were reduced by at least some amount, said county Real Property Tax Administrator Lisa Miura. She attributed the increases to the increased real estate market, which drove assessments up based on sales.
Nelson Harano, a five-year board member and current chairman, said this year’s tenure was “especially difficult” for all the board because of the significant increase in property valuations.
“From my perspective, looking across the meeting room at appellants has been disheartening,” Harano said in comments at the end of the report. “Significant increases in property values and resultant increase in one’s property tax bill have strained financial resources to pay the property tax bill.”
One example is 70-year-old James Again of Pahoa, one of four property owners filing complaints with the board after the deadline for appeals had past.
“My life changed when I got the 2022 real property tax assessment near the end of March,” Again said in a Sept. 17 letter written in longhand.
Again’s property tax bill he’d been paying the past 18 years went from the $200 minimum tax to $1,127.61 based on his property assessment being adjusted from $11,100 to $120,600. He said he’s trying to live on his $722 monthly Social Security check.
“There should be some sort of warning, at least a year, to huge jumps in assessments. I would have filed for a homeowners exemption, an agricultural exemption or other possible exemption if I would have known what was coming,” he said.
The County Council is expected to take up the report at a future meeting.
The county ended the budget year with record fund balance after an economy buoyed by robust real estate increases and new taxes on hotels and short-term rentals increased the county’s budget by double digits.
The total value of net taxable real property in the county was certified this year at $43.8 billion, an increase of $6.8 billion or 18.5% compared to last year. But not every category of real property increased at the same rate. The hotel and resort class got hit the hardest with an average 46.2% increase, industrial with 29.3% and commercial with 28.8%.
Attempts by Mayor Mitch Roth and some council members earlier this year to offer some financial relief by rolling back the property tax rates were met with resistance from the council majority.
Harano said his sense was that most appellants were pleading for lower taxes, rather than lower property values.
“It is my sincere hope and request to the County to be resourceful in diversifying its revenue base with other forms of revenue which supplements real property tax revenue,” he said, “and provide welcomed relief to business and homeowners alike.”