NPTR: Alert #143: Revolt leader meets with Governor

[Wayne Fischer]

*Revolt leader meets with Governor*

*ALERT:* #143
*DATE:* September 3, 2007
*TO:* Incline Village & Crystal Bay Property Owners
*FROM: *Village League Tax Revolt Committee

*Dear Incline Village & Crystal Bay Property Owners,*

The following front page article in yesterday's North Lake Tahoe Bonanza 
newspaper is an excellent update on our property tax revolt efforts.

Best Regards,
*Wayne Fischer, *Webmaster
Nevada Property Tax Revolt Web
www.NevadaPropertyTaxRevolt.org

===============================


*Revolt leader meets with Governor*

/Kevin MacMillan
bonanza staff writer,
kmacmillan at tahoebonanza.com
September 2, 2007
www.tahoebonanza.com/


    Maryanne Ingemanson has led the collective voice of Incline Village 
and Crystal Bay residents in their fight with Washoe County and the 
state of Nevada to achieve fair tax rights.

    Last week she used her voice to inform Nevada's leader of what she 
feels has been a five-year injustice.

    Ingemanson, Incline resident and president of the Village League to 
Save Incline Assets, the nonprofit group of Incline tax protesters, said 
she met for an hour with Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons on Monday to discuss 
the tax revolt.

    "At this point he is very aware of our situation," Ingemanson said. 
"He also is very aware of how the agencies of the state must follow the law.

    "He was very gracious to meet with me, and I can say he was simply 
stunned at some of the things I shared with him."

    After five years, while Ingemanson said things slowly are turning in 
Incline's favor, complications from the state and Washoe County don't 
seem to be letting up.

    The latest complication came this week, Ingemanson said, when the 
approximately 300 Incline residents for whom the Village League filed 
appeals and won for the 2006-2007 tax year received written decisions 
(documents that include the exact refund a citizen should receive) from 
Nevada Department of Taxation.

    The state Board of Equalization confirmed June 27 as the date that 
prior settlements (including the 300 cases from '06-'07) were approved 
and finalized, according to the Village League's Web site. The state 
Department of Taxation is required to issue a written decision within 60 
days of the board approval, the Web site reads.

    Decisions were issued last Tuesday, Ingemanson said. Dino DiCiano, 
executive director of the Nevada Department of Taxation, confirmed on 
Friday written decisions were issued this week, within the 60-day 
deadline retroactive to June 27.

    The problem with the decisions, Ingemanson said, is some are wrong.

    "We got all the decisions, which was something like 1,000 pages of 
written decisions. But when I read the text and looked at the numbers, 
the first three I looked at were wrong," Ingemanson said. "So we went 
through each one and noticed similar mistakes. And the funny thing is 
all the mistakes were in favor of the county."

    Ingemanson said the final assessed value given in the written 
decisions were greater than they should have been because the correct 
percentage wasn't taken from the original assessed value.

    DiCiano admitted some numbers were wrong, but said they resulted 
from a minor "rounding problem."

    "It's my understanding that the issue is not the percentages, the 
issue was in the calculation," DiCiano said. "It may well be a rounding 
problem when it came to the final assessed values. A vast majority of 
the (written decisions) came out correct. For those that aren't, it 
comes down to a rounding problem, which equate to just pennies from a 
tax standpoint.

    "That's something that can be fixed. We're not talking hundreds of 
thousands of dollars here."

    In an attempt to contact the Department of Taxation to address the 
perceived problem, Ingemanson said that Teri Rubald, who heads the 
Division of Assessment Standards at the Department of Taxation, said no 
spreadsheet or paper trail of how each case was calculated existed.

    DiCiano on Friday said Rubald is "in the process of providing a 
spreadsheet" to Ingemanson and the Village League. Rubald could not be 
reached for comment as of press time Friday.

    While she continues to address what she describes as a "mess," 
Ingemanson said she and Village League attorneys are preparing for Sept. 
13, when the 1,000 cases from the 2007-2008 fiscal year will be heard 
before the state Board of Equalization. The cases are in response to an 
appeal by the Washoe County Assessor's office after Washoe County Board 
of Equalization approved the 1,000 cases in February 2006 for refund, 
according to the Web site.

    The meeting originally was scheduled for Aug. 16, but was postponed 
because of potential Open Meeting Act violation.

    "When I reviewed the agenda prior to the meeting, I had concerns it 
was not properly noticed," DiCiano said. "The language I felt was 
confusing. I had an obligation there, and I recommended the meeting to 
be postponed."

    Incline Village and Crystal Bay residents can follow the tax 
revolt's progress by checking www.nevadapropertytaxrevolt.org. 
Ingemanson and other Village League members publish periodic updates on 
the Web site.

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