TUCSON, Ariz. -- Thousands of Pima County homeowners will see increases of $100,000 or more in the tax value of their homes in their 2008 valuation notices, officials said.


The notices being mailed this week are based on home sales that occurred in 2005 and 2006, at the height of the hot housing market.

The tax rates that are adopted this summer will be applied to these values in 2008. Taxes paid this year will be based on last year's values.

PRESCOTT: The telephones at the Yavapai County Assessor's Office have not stopped ringing since property owners received Notices of Value for the 2008 tax year.


Some property owners are concerned about an increase in the full cash value of their property and the lack of a formula to determine the increase.

Charles Phillips and Stan Rowley are curious about the how the assessor's office determines Full Cash Value.

KINGMAN - A statewide group of residents is fed up with the Arizona property tax system. Arizona Tax Revolt will be circulating an initiative in the next few weeks to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.


"People have budgets. They budget so much for groceries, bills and other items every month. They budget for their property taxes. They expect them to be so much," said Marc Goldstone, chair of Arizona Tax Revolt.

If you have received your Notice of Value from the Mohave County Assessor for 2008, you may be like me and understand better why our forefathers threw the tea in the Boston Harbor in revolt! I don't recall all the details of that time, but I do remember it had to do with unfair taxation, and it was the first thing that came to mind when I read my tax notice. In talking with people around town, it appears that many feel the same.

Payson homeowner Paul Penning got a shock recently when he learned the assessed limited property valuation of his three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath home jumped $22,000.


Home valuations were sent out Feb. 15 and Penning wasn't the only one in northern Gila County to be taken off guard by an increased assessment.

After new valuation notices went out to all property owners a few weeks ago, Gila County Assessor Dale Hom said his office has had a flurry of calls.

Like Penning, many worry how that's going to impact property taxes.

Pima County residents including those in Green Valley and Sahuarita have received their 2008 property valuation notices.


And since just about all Pima County property is valued higher than the year before, property taxes will go up although tax rates may actually go down.

The Pima County supervisors set the rates, although they’re somewhat handcuffed on what they can charge due to a recently approved proposition.

Unhappy property owners can appeal their new valuations until April 27, Bill Staples, Pima County Assessor, said.

The numbers can give tax-paying homeowners a case of rate shock.


Several West Valley school districts published truth in taxation notices in today's View announcing minor to seemingly excessive jumps in primary property tax rates.

Tolleson Union High School District residents found out about a 114.5 percent hike, residents in the Buckeye Union High School District were told of a 1,348 percent increase and Saddle Mountain Unified School District officials informed residents in the Tonopah and north Buckeye area about a 2,972 percent jump.

With few exceptions, the seeds of property tax revolts are sown when elected officials demonstrate that they cannot be trusted with the extraordinary power granted to them through an ad valorem (valuation-based) property tax system. That demonstration was clearly on display at the recent Gilbert Town Council hearing to set the 2007 property tax rate.

Gilbert Councilman Dave Crozier wants the Town Council to reconsider the town’s recently approved property tax rate — in light of proposed statewide initiatives that would retroactively force governments to decrease tax hikes.


“We should at least try to do something to mitigate some of this tax burden, or people are going to overreact and do it with initiative, and our hands will be tied,” he said. “We would be mandated to limit tax increases to cost-of-living and population increases.”

A movement is underway to roll back levies of taxing entities to levels of two years ago, one of several efforts in Arizona in recent years aimed at shielding property owners from tax hikes.