Bicameral Legislation Seeks to Reform Property Tax Collection

Liz Gullett

Bicameral Legislation Seeks to Reform Property Tax Collection

May 25, 2018

Representative Jim Lower (R-Cedar Lake) and Senator Jim Stamas (R-Midland) introduced legislation reforming the way Michigan administers property taxes. The legislation aims to make the process of collecting the state’s $14 billion in property taxes more efficient.

The two bills would update property assessing laws to specify minimum quality standards that every city, township, or county assessing office must meet. The change is intended to improve taxpayer and local government fairness by providing consistent assessments.

Additionally, the goal is to provide dollars for training and start-up to bolster the state’s shrinking assessor and board of review talent pools. In Michigan more than 1,500 local units of government are responsible for uniformly assessing property statewide and more than 1,500 local boards of review are responsible for quality control. Currently, there are approximately 150 master-level assessors equipped to handle complex assessments for the state’s local entities, with about half of these types of assessors nearing retirement in the coming years.

The House bill was referred to the House Tax Policy Committee for consideration and the Senate bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee for consideration.

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