Thank you Alan for that insightful explanation. I am sending an email to Dan Roach right now.

Regarding HB 1523, by changing this law terms to the preponderence of the evidence from clear, cogent, and convincing evedence will make the State Auditors job much easy to justify that his assumption of your property taxes is correct. Should you want to challenge your property tax hike with the way this law is wrote, the State Auditor will need not carry the burden of proof, because it is a civil matter. The State Auditor now carries the benefit of assumption, meaning he needs no evidence to support his claim. Fulfilling the burden of proof effectively captures the benefit of assumption, passing the burden of proof off to another party (the home owner). Using the Latin terms: maxim necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit, which means that the general rule is that “the necessity of proof lies with he who complains.” Therefore the burden of proof usually lies with the party making the new claim.

The only exception to this rule is when a prima facie case has been made. Prima facie means to signify that on first examination, a matter appears to be self-evident from the facts.

A egg in nut shell, this law means if you do not like the increase in your property taxes after the State Aditor makes the assumption that your property is worth more, so you should be taxed more, even though the value of your home or property has deminishished, your only recourse will be after complaining and having the reassesment, will be to hire an attorney and to go to court. This means you better have a big wallet to pay your attorney to challenge the assesment. In fact, this will cost you more in the long run than just paying the tax. This is what the legislators are counting on.

Even if you should win in court, the next time the State Auditor does the assesment agin, which will be the next year, the Auditor will raise your taxes again. After waiting 2 to 3 years to go to court, he can increase the taxes two or three more times, and of course you will need to go through the same challenges before taking it to court, as you more than likely will not be able to ammend your first claim.

This law is just another way to legally make sure you will pay your taxes and to not challenge them, because you will not be able to afford to challenge them.