Jim Grant / Nevada AppealAttorney Suellen Fulstone, representing more than 1,300 Incline petitioners, addresses the state Board of Equalization on Tuesday.
More than 75 Incline Village homeowners turned out Tuesday asking the state Board of Equalization to follow the Nevada Supreme Court ruling and finally fix their property tax bills.None of them testified during the one-hour hearing, instead letting their lawyer Suellen Fulstone handle the arguments.And the board didn’t act, instead taking the issues under advisement.Fulstone argued the unconstitutional methods used to assess those residential properties require action for all 9,000 property owners at Incline and Crystal Bay. She said the high court ruled that the 2002 appraisal was null, void and unconstitutional but that the situation can be fixed enmasse by returning to the 2002 land and home values then applying the same increase factors used by the Washoe County.Washoe County has estimated the total impact of rolling back taxes for all Incline/ Crystal Bay properties at more than $12 million.Board chairman Tony Wren, however, said he doesn’t think it’s that simple, that the board and county have to examine the parcels to see how they were treated because every parcel in that area was evaluated and treated a bit differently.“You can’t just say everybody was wrongly done,” he told Fulstone. “You need to prove that.”She disagreed.“What the court said, and is binding on this body, was that this was a mass appraisal,” she said.Fulstone said the board fixed the situation for the 2006-2007 tax year by going back to the 2002 values, eliminating the use of “views,” beach front enhancements and other enhancements to the property taxes the court had ruled unconstitutional. Then, the county was able to determine values for those homes by applying the factors it used elsewhere in the county for that year.She said the board should do the same for all other tax years since 2003 and finally fix the problem.Fulstone said she still has problems with those factors — the subject of four other lawsuits the Village League to Save Incline Assets — but seemed to hint the group might be willing to discuss those suits if the board acts.