Pasco: Tiny card can spare farmers big tax bill

Tiny card can spare farmers big tax bill

Under new legislation, if they don't return a card mailed to them, assessed land value may soar, along with the size of their tax bill.

By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer

DADE CITY -- A little tweak on a state statute could mean a big headache for Pasco County Property Appraiser Mike Wells, not to mention farmers across the state.

Wells said a change last spring in the way agricultural property tax exemptions are recorded could catch farmers unaware this year, stripping them of the exemptions and rocketing the taxable value of their property.

"It's going to be confusing at best," Wells said.

Farmland is assessed at set values, based on the use of the land. Pasture land used to raise livestock, for example, can be assessed as low as $105 an acre, even if it's surrounded by luxury housing developments selling half-acre lots for $40,000 or more.

The goal, Wells said, is to keep farmers from being taxed off their land as urban development stretches out from traditional cities.

For years, Wells and his counterparts across the state have sent notices to farmers advising them that if the land use had changed, then the farmer had to report that change.

If the farmer didn't send in the little card, the exemption continued for another tax year, just as the homestead exemption rolls over from year to year for homeowners.

This year, that changes for the farmers.

Under a change in state law, buried in Senate Bill 1360, farmers must return the card affirming that no change in use had occurred. If they don't send in the card, they lose the exemption.

Wells said there's nothing he can do if the card doesn't come in. Assessed land value could soar, and with the value, the taxes charged to the landowner.

"I need to alert agricultural interests they must return the card this year," Wells said. "They must read it, understand it, sign it and return it."

Attorney Gaylord Wood has represented Broward County in a continuing struggle over agricultural exemptions. He said the paragraph, stuck inside a tax administration bill, likely goes back to the Broward dispute over allowing agricultural exemptions for horse-boarding operations.

The paragraph blocks property appraisers from re-examining businesses that already have obtained exemptions through county panels able to overrule unfavorable rulings from their respective property appraisers, Wood said.

But while it helped about 40 horse-boarding businesses in Broward, Wood said it burdened farmers and property appraisers everywhere.

"It's the law of unintended consequences," he said.

According to the Pasco County Property Appraiser's Office, there were 4,045 agricultural parcels in Pasco County in 2002, representing 198,854 acres -- 41.7 percent of the total county area. The majority of the exemptions are listed as grazing land.

Wells said his office will send out the cards and stress to farmers that the cards must be returned. The first notices will go out in the coming weeks, and Wells said his office will send out duplicates in February.

The cards have to be returned by March 1.

"They're used to getting the thing and throwing it in the trash. Now the rules have changed," Wells said. "I guarantee there are going to be some who just don't get it."