Uniform Assessment of Agricultural Property for Taxation: Improvements from System Reform

Abstract

property assessment uniformity and the nature and effects of agricultural use-value assessment laws. This analysis of the influences on agricultural market-value assessment in Virginia contributes to both segments and makes a linkage between the two not previously explored. Investigations in these areas are important for several reasons. First, local property taxes are the largest source of either state or local own-source revenue (Census 1985, 5). Second, properties often are assessed at quite different percentages of value (Census 1984a, 20-25, 51), even when property tax statutes required uniform assessments.1 Also, agricultural property makes up about one-sixth of the market value of real estate (Census 1984a, 1112). Finally, nearly all states have use-value assessment laws (Census 1984a, 269-73; Dunford, Chicoine, and Ervin 1986, 21). The legality and equity of the tax are undermined if assessors fail to achieve uniform estimates of market value. Most states' use-value laws maintain a tie to market value, so even in these states it is important to understand what influences the uniformity of assessors' market value estimates. The assessment uniformity literature shows that several factors help to explain local assessor performance, including the community's economic structure, the nature of and changes in its property stock, and its property tax system.2 Studies of use-value programs suggest that they tend to codify prior extralegal preferential assessments.3 Such programs legalize preferential taxation of agricultural land vis-h-vis other property types but, as noted, they typically do not remove concern for uniform market value assessments