The next critical phase of the Schuylkill County Property Tax Reassessment is now underway.
About 28,000 Change of Assessment notices were mailed to Schuylkill County property owners in the last week. Another 30,000 are going out in the mail and should be received this week.
Those notices will have several sets of numbers included on them, notably the preliminary new assessed value of a property versus the current assessed value. This is not a final assessment notification. Those will come in July.
An estimated County tax impact will also be included. That will show property owners approximately what their new County property tax rate will be. The notices do not apply to municipal and school property taxes.
If properties are enrolled in the Clean & Green program, those estimates will also be included in the notice received in the coming weeks.
With this information in hand, Schuylkill County property owners can now schedule informal reviews of their new assessment.
Informal reviews are a chance to correct any data that the company conducting the reassessment may have gotten wrong or information that doesn’t accurately reflect a person’s property.
At this point in the reassessment process, appeals can not be completed.
According to Tim Barr, of Vision Government Solutions, which is conducting the reassesment, only an informal review of the data received in the mail can be done. That means only the data can be disputed or clarified, not the new assessed value.
“This is about the data,” Barr stressed last week.
The County will send your property’s official new assessed value on or before July 1. Assessement appeals will be completed starting in July and August.Â
Informal appeals can be completed in-person or by phone. Anyone wishing to have an in-person informal review must make an appointment with Vision Government Solutions and they’ll be conducted at the former STS headquarters at Saint Clair Industrial Park.
Barr said that his company is currently seeing a 4:1 ratio of people preferring to do informal reviews over the phone instead of in person. That may change but he said it may be more convenient for property owners because informal reviews by phone can be conducted during evening hours and on Saturdays.
If data needs to be changed during an informal review, it could affect the assessed value of a property.
“There will be real corrections at these informal reviews,” Barr said. “That’s the point.”
To schedule an informal review, contact Vision Government Solutions at 1-800-525-9876 or visit vgsi.com/schedule.
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