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Show Property Assessment In Grand County During 1974 Level is 1 1.91 In 1974 locally-assessed property in Grand County was being assessed asses-sed on the average at 11.91 per cent of selling price. This compares with an average assessment level of 12.99 per cent in 1972 and 14.81percentinl970. Locally assessed property prop-erty in Grand County will be revalued in 1975 under the five-year continuing property reappraisal program. While the property revaluation re-valuation program in Utah is accomplishing initial equalization among properties pro-perties and counties, inflation in-flation and rapidly changing chang-ing property value are making the results become be-come quickly dated. This was the conclusion conclu-sion reached by Utah Foundation, the private tax research organization organiza-tion in their analysis of the progress m ade in Utah's reappraisal program. pro-gram. The primary purpose of Utah's continuing revaluation re-valuation program is to equalize assessments among property classes by initially reappraising all locally assessed real property at about 20 per cent of fair market value. The average assessment level for the four counties coun-ties which were assessed in 1974 (Beaver, Box Elder, El-der, San Juan, and Tooele was 19.72 per cent. Foundation analysts note, however that the results of revaluation and equalization soon deteriorate. deteri-orate. For example, the average assessment of the three counties (Mil- lard, Uintah, and Washington) Wash-ington) which had been revalued re-valued in 1973 had declined de-clined to 16.89 per cent by 1974. Similarly, the average ratio in the ten counties which' had been revalued in 1972 had dropped to 14.79 per cent by 1974. To correct the despar-ities despar-ities that occur between revaluation periods and to provide for continued equalization among counties, coun-ties, the Utah State Tax Commission is considering consider-ing making annual assessment as-sessment adjustments in those years when a physical phy-sical revaluation is not made. Such a program would require computerization computer-ization of all tax records which would proceed at the rate of 20 per cent per year, thus taking about five years before the program pro-gram would become completely com-pletely operational. Legislation enacted by the 1969 Utah Legislature called for reappraising all locally assessed real property every five years on a county-by-county rotation ro-tation basis. The Foundation Founda-tion report observes that reappraisals had been completed in 17 of Utah's 29 counties by 1974. Four more counties (Cache, Davis, Grand, and Weber) were completed for the 1975 tax year. The report re-port estimates thatitpro-bably thatitpro-bably will be 1978 before all of the remaining nine counues are compieieu. Thus, it will take about eight years instead of five to complete the first cycle cy-cle of the reappraisal program. The study points out that there were a number of factors that caused delays in the initial ini-tial revaluation cycle. For the most part, these difficulties will be overcome over-come during the initial revaluation cycle, and subsequent revaluations should be completed in the prescribed 5-year period, per-iod, if sufficient funds continue to be appropriated appropri-ated for the program. Among the other - observations ob-servations made in the Utah Foundation Study are the following: - For residential and farm properties, the property pro-perty tax burden in Utah appears to be somewhat below national and regional re-gional averages. There are indications, however, that commercial and industrial in-dustrial property taxes in Utah are above average. aver-age. - Although the property proper-ty tax has declined somewhat some-what in relative importance, import-ance, it continued to be the largest single state and local tax producer in Utah until last year when the sales tax surpassed sur-passed it in total yield |