THE GREAT PROPERTY ASSESSMENT SCAM

One of the most interesting research items that is now of interest me is the rising property tax payments on residential housing in Memphis and Shelby County in the last ten years.

Look at the City of Memphis CAFR for 2008 (Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) and the Shelby County CAFR. I have attached four pages from the City report and two pages from the County report that has to do with the property tax assessed values for residential and commercial property in the City and County. You will see that the residential property assessed value in Memphis went from $3.2 billion in 1999 to $5.2 billion in 2008, an increase of 62%. The commercial and industrial assessed value went from $3.6 billion to $4.3 billion an increase of 19%. For Shelby County the residential property tax assessed value went from $6.1 billion in 1999 to $10 billion in 2008, an increase of 64%. The commercial and industrial value in the County went from $4.4 billion to $5.4 billion, an increase of 22%. The total tax levies from 1999 to 2008 for the City and the County went from $545 million to $1.1 billion, an increase of 100%, basically doubled. The population increase from 2000 to 2008 for Shelby County is 1%.

Does any of this make sense to you, the taxpayers? The property tax assessor told us that the 8.8% increase in property values for Shelby County was perfectly alright and in accordance with reality. I went to zillow.com (an outstanding real estate valuation site) and found the following information.

• Shelby County home values during the last year are down 10%, not up 8.8%.
  
• Shelby County home values are up 17% in the last ten years, not 64%.
  
• Inflation is up 30% over the last ten years, not 100% which is the take from property taxes.
  

I will be reporting further on what politicians are doing with the tax rate and what they are hiding from you, the taxpaying public.

Go to this website to verify this information. http://www.zillow.com/local-info/TN-Shelby-County-home-value/r_1388/#metric=mt%3D34%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D6%26rt%3D6%26r%3D1388%2C32811%2C10264%2C11594

Click here to see property tax data from the latest Memphis and Shelby County CAFR reports