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Show Landowners of Utah County Urged to File Utah County Farm Bureau President, Robert Holdaway, states "That the time has come for landowners of Utah County to reap the benefit of the Utah State Agriculture Assessment Act, commomly known as the Greenbelt." "All farmers in the County are urged to file their Greenbelt applications as soon as they are received. The new state reassessment program will make us all thankful to those Farm Bureau leaders and legislators who worked so hard to get this law passed." An expert crew of assessors and research people from the Assessors Division of the Utah State Tax Commission are busy at the present time preparing information to carry out the reevaluation of all property in Utah County. The new assessments are due to be completed in time to be applied in 1976. Landowners in counties where1 this work has been completed say, "Only one thing is certain, assessment will be higher, the only question is how much hiaher?'' land varies from 3 percent to 12 percent of market value. There is no doubt that some property will receive a lower valuation than it now has, but land to quote one official, "Can do nothing but go up." A serious problem in Utah County with the State Assessment Program comes because there are only five small agriculture zones in the County. Most of the Agriculture land is presently Zoned Agriculture Residential or in the five acre agriculture zone. Officials conducting the Stale Assessment Program say that they must assess all of the land in these zones at the higher rales because of the residential development permitted in these zones. They emphasize that five acre zones are in fact a residential zone and will be assessed as such. The The Greenbelt was designed to help agriculture landowners to stay in business by allowing a farmer to gave his land assessed on the basis of its use for agricultural purposes so long as it meets the Mr. Holdaway stated that there appears to be some confussion as to the effect the assessment program will have on the taxes landowners will have to pay. This confussion comes because the law under which the program is being ' conducted states that city and county governemnls shall not collect more than a 6 percent increase over the previous years tax collections. This leads individual landowners to believe that they will pay a maxiumum of a 6 percent increase in-crease in taxes and this is not true. The program is a reevaluation and equalization program. Which means that equalization will be established not only between counties, but between classes of property within the counties. The problem can be seen when we consider that the assessed valuation of the utilities is very near the level set by State Satatute. The valuation of buildings is more nearly the goal of 20 percent of market value set for all property and the assessed valuation of most requirements of the law, one of which requires landowners to pay five years back taxes at the higher rates when the use of the land is changed. Mr. Holdaway states that Harrison Connover, our Utah County Assessor, is so convinced con-vinced that all land that can meet the new requirements of the Greenbelt will want to get in it; that Mr. Connover is mailing Greenbelt applications to all land owners, a few at a time, to avoid the rush before the December 31st deadline. Mr. Connover feels that if landowners lan-downers do not return the Greenbelt applications soon after receiving them, there may not be time to process them so as to have them go into effect for the 1976 tax year. All landowners of five or more acres with a five year or longer history of agriculture production and who can show at least $1,000 of agricultural income for their land should consider applying for agriculture assessment under the Greenbelt Program. |