Okay, it seems that personal property taxes are assessed mainly against businesses, mobile homes and ships.

Here's what the county says.

And keep in mind the statement about the assessments being sent to ESTABLISHED accounts.. Personal Property Assessments Summary

Taxable personal property includes agricultural machinery and equipment, manufacturers', contractors' and logging machinery and equipment, office machinery and equipment as well as supplies and materials which are not held for sale or do not become an ingredient or component of an article being produced for sale. Furniture and fixtures in commercial use, leased equipment, certain leasehold improvements, lessee-owned improvements on public land and commercial vessels not subject to excise tax also are assessed and taxed as personal property.

Many types of personal property are exempt from taxation. These include livestock, inventories held solely for resale, intangible personal property and personal effects and household goods in use by their owner.

Most personal property assessments are based on information provided by the taxpayer on personal property affidavit forms furnished by the Assessor. The affidavits are mailed to established accounts by January 1 each year and must be returned to the Assessor by April 30. Affidavits for new businesses reporting for the first time may be mailed after January 1. Extensions of the filing date are not granted. A tax penalty of 5% per month will be applied to affidavits received after April 30. The Assessor may waive the penalty if the late filing is due to reasonable cause. A penalty of 25% of the tax due in the following year will be applied for failure to file an affidavit.

The Assessor uses information provided by the taxpayer to determine value, taking into consideration age, cost and type of property. When the affidavit is processed and the property valued and entered on the assessment roll, a Personal Property Assessment Notice is mailed to the taxpayer.

Updated: Feb. 23, 1999

Department of Assessments here are a couple of URLs http://www.metrokc.gov/assessor/persprop.htm

Forms Department of Assessment forms currently available online:

Exemption Forms

Senior Citizen and Disabled Persons Reduction in Property Taxes Form Senior Citizen and Disabled Persons Declaration to Defer Property Taxes Form Destroyed Real or Personal Property Form Proof of Disability Form Application for Historic Property Exemption Form Personal Property Assessment Forms

Personal Property Affidavit Form

Senior Citizen and Disabled Persons Reduction in Property Taxes Form For Property Tax Exemptions:

 You must be age 61 or older, or disabled, on or before December 31 of the year you file.

 You must be the owner and occupant of a single family dwelling, mobile home, condo or Co-op housing.

 Temporary confinement to a hospital or nursing home is allowed

 Your annual income from all sources must not exceed $30,000.

For Property Tax Deferrals:

Senior Citizens or Disabled persons may defer property taxes on up to 80% of the equity in their property.

 Age 60 or older as of December 31 of the year you file, or permanently disabled.

 Owner and occupant of residence.

 Your annual income from all sources must not exceed $34,000.

 A lien is placed against the property. Interest accrues at a rate of 8% annually. Reimbursement of deferred property taxes plus interest is required upon sale or transfer of the property. Tax relief for seniors and disabled You or someone you know could be eligible for significant property tax relief.

State law provides for two tax benefit programs for senior citizens and the disabled: property tax exemptions and property tax deferrals.

Yet more than 26,000 qualified seniors and disabled have yet to register for the exemption, and only 1 in 100 of those eligible for deferrals are currently enrolled.

Details of these two programs are provided on the left. The process of applying is fairly simple.

We encourage you or those you know to take advantage of this meaningful tax relief provided for our citizens on fixed incomes.

Sincerely,

Ron Sims King County Executive

Scott Noble, King County Assessor You may download a Senior Citizen and Disabled Persons Reduction in Property Taxes form:

Self-Extracting .exe file, Word 6.0/95 (23 KB) Adobe Acrobat .pdf file (24 KB) * Rich Text Format .rtf file(42 KB) To apply for deferral of property taxes, complete a Senior Citizen and Disabled Persons Declaration to Defer Property Taxes Form:

Self-Extracting .exe file, Word 6.0/95 (24 KB) Adobe Acrobat .pdf file (15 KB) Rich Text Format .rtf file(32 KB) WinZip Self-Extractor .zip file (8 KB) If property is destroyed, an exemption may be requested by submitting a Destroyed Real or Personal Property Form: Self-Extracting, .exe file, Word 6.0/95 (23 KB) Adobe Acrobat .pdf file (11 KB) Rich Text Format .rtf file(21 KB) WinZip Self-Extractor .zip file (7 KB) For an exemption due to disability, complete a Proof of Disability Form: Self-Extracting .exe file, Word 6.0/95 (20 KB) Adobe Acrobat .pdf file (8 KB) Rich Text Format .rtf file(6 KB) WinZip Self-Extractor .zip file (4 KB) Request an exemption for an historic property using an Application for Historic Property Exemption Form: Self-Extracting .exe file, Word 6.0/95 (23 KB) Adobe Acrobat .pdf file (9 KB) Rich Text Format .rtf file(21 KB) WinZip Self-Extractor .zip file (7 KB) Or you may request that any of these forms be mailed to you. To do this, please contact: Ethel Jackson King County Department of Assessments 500 Fourth Avenue, Room 709 Seattle, WA 98104 For more information you may call (206) 296-3920, or toll-free (800) 325-6165 in-state, (800) 624-0875 out-of-state. For TTY dial (206) 296-7888.

Personal Property Affidavit Form

Assessor's staff use information taxpayers provide on Personal Property Affidavits to assess personal property used in businesses as of January 1 of the reporting year. Click on one of the following choices to view the form:

Self-Extracting .exe file, Word 6.0/95 (42 KB) Rich Text Format .rtf file (240 KB) Adobe Acrobat .pdf file (60 KB) Information to help accurately report business assets is provided in the files listed below. 1999 Asset Category Code List

Adobe Acrobat.pdf file(34 KB) Excel 97 .xls file (67 KB) 1999 Building Improvements Category Code List

Adobe Acrobat.pdf file (14 KB) Excel 97.xls file (36 KB) 1998 Supplemental Valuation Schedule

Adobe Acrobat.pdf file (6 KB) 1999 Supplemental Valuation Schedule

Excel 97 .xls file (34 KB) 1998 Personal Property Valuation Indicator Table

Adobe Acrobat.pdf file (5 KB) 1999 Personal Property Valuation Indicator Table Excel 97 .xls file (30 KB) Adobe Acrobat.pdf file (34 KB) * To obtain a copy of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plugin software, please look here.

http://www.metrokc.gov/assessor/forms.htm

That should answer most of the questions and straighten out the misdirections

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), September 14, 1999

Answers

Maddjak:

And your point is? I-695 removes the exemption of vehicles from the personal propoerty tax, so the information you present would need to be amended to reflect that change.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), September 14, 1999.

Adoption of I-695 will require personal property tax to be charged under existing law for vehicles. Section 3(19) of Initiative 695 expressly repeals the only section of Washington law which exempts vehicles from personal property tax--RCW 82.44.130. The Washington Constitution and RCW 84.36.005 each require now that all property, real or personal in the state shall be taxed uniformly, except property specifically made exempt by law. The result is that unless exempt, all personal property must now be taxed uniformly with all other non-exempt property. A vote to adopt I-695 is a public vote repealing the only exemption against existing personal property taxation of vehicles.

Some have questioned whether a vote of the people under section (2) would be required before a local government or the state could "impose" a tax on vehicles that wasn't imposed last year. The answer is NO. The reason is that we are the voters who will impose the increase in the tax base, if we vote for Section (3) of the Initiative. No discretion is left to any government official to tax or not tax vehicles, without an exemption in general legislation. The property tax must be charged equally to all non-exempt property.

What is really unusual is that if I-695 repeals the exemption of vehicles from property tax, the legislature couldn't even reimpose an exemption for vehicles without a 2/3 vote of each house for at least 2 years under the Constitution. They couldn't even do that without voter approval, because exempting that much property value from which to collect the monetary amount charged last year would cause the rates to increase for everyone else, requiring a vote under Section (2) of I-695.

The hassle of filing personal property tax returns every March is almost as bad a any tax I would pay. Now I don't have to file personal property tax returns, if all I have is household goods and personal effects, which are exempt in an unlimited amount, and my other personal property does not exceed a general $3000 exemption. Vehicles are expressly excluded from the definition of exempt household goods and personal effects, so if I own vehicle(s)of more than $3,000 fair market value (it runs), I will have to start filing annually. The Assessor will have to determine the value of my vehicle and the Treasurer will be required to extend the tax rate to that value. I'll have to pay that tax by April 30, or if any significant tax is due, 1/2 in April and 1/2 by November. If I lie on my personal property tax return I can be charged with felony perjury, and the Treasurer can collect a 100% penalty on the tax due, if I willfully file a false return or fail to file. If I'm late in filing, a penalty from 5% to 25% is required.

The added costs to collect this slightly lesser tax substituted by Section (2) of the Initiative will exceed the cost of collecting the MVET by several times, and it will be borne by local governments (County Assessors) from revenue now used for law enforcement and other purposes, not the Department of Licensing, who pays the more efficient expenses of collecting MVET. I believe, but have not yet seen any actual cost estimates from any county, that the cost will actually exceed any revenue which results. The trouble is that even if it costs more money than it gathers, the constitutional uniformity requirement will require that it be done, unless voters approve replacement of the exemption removed by I-695.

-- Bob Dick (bdick@harbornet.com), September 14, 1999.

Just to get this all in the same thread.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), September 14, 1999.

Gee... this IS a toughy...

Keep paying the 2.2% we pay now... or, in the unlikely event that the property tax is applied, paying less then 1.4% for a property tax charge.

Gee... what EVER should we do?

Westin

Who notes the property tax issue is yet another in the series of the red herring issues an increasingly desparate opposition is pulling out.... and who wonders why the opposition sees this as some sort of reason to vote against 695.

-- Westin (86se4sp@my-deja.com), September 14, 1999.

All of you who are businesses and pay personal property tax stand up!!!

All of you who are not businesses stand up!!

You don't pay personal property tax

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), September 15, 1999.

Crazy Jack said: "All of you who are businesses and pay personal property tax stand up!!! All of you who are not businesses stand up!! You don't pay personal property tax" but left off the final tag line

UNTIL I-695 PASSES

-- David (unified@whidbey.net), September 15, 1999.

David,

I WOULD RATHER PAY A 1.4% (OR LESS) PROPERTY TAX THEN A 2.2% TAB FEE. There... can I POSSIBLY make it any clearer?

Well, I can try:

EVEN IF THE PROPERTY TAX IS APPLIED, MOST PEOPLE WOULD SEE A SUBSTANTIAL REDUCTION IN THE AMOUNT THEY WOULD HAVE TO PAY.

OK?

Westin

-- Westin (86se4sp@my-deja.com), September 15, 1999.

David-

I think you're wrong, but what if you are right. What if after I-695 passes, vehicles are subject to a personal property tax, albeitt a smaller tax than the current MVET. You know what? I don't care. If the personal property tax were AS MUCH as the MVET, that would not dissuade me from voting for I-695. Want to know why? Read yesterday's KOMO 4 poll of potential voters. I-695 had HIGHER support based on the provision to require taxpayer approval of future tax and fee increases than it did on the provision to eliminate MVET. So, like many people, I see I-695 as a chance for the people to take politics back from the special interest groups, the union and business groups that lobby THEIR interests, not the interests of the average taxpayer. That's why I'm voting for it, and the more I see them campaign against it the stronger I will support it.

-- Gary Henriksen (henrik@harbornet.com), September 15, 1999.

Gary: "What if after I-695 passes, vehicles are subject to a personal property tax, albeitt a smaller tax than the current MVET. You know what? I don't care."

So all that justification of the initiative about giving back some MVET money to the little guy is no longer important, when it looks like it may not be real? Now the justification is the increased control of government by the voters, since that also sells in the polls?

I noted early that the MVET is a diversion; and the real issue is the requirement for voter approval for all tax increases by government of, or within, the state; and "tax increase" defined to include what the courts have ruled are not taxes at all. So when do we get some clear answers about what that means? The only answer to that is, when a court rules; because you can't figure it out from the initiative. Attorneys don't know. Benham has this strange notion it is a Prop 13 freeze on property value, and he is one of the co- chairmen of the campaign. No one can even say with certainty if it would be effective 12/2/1999 or 1/1/2000.

This initiative has some problems, and even though it may pass it SHOULD to be defeated. It doesn't do what it is trying to do well, and what it is trying to do is wrong-headed.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), September 15, 1999.

d-

"So all that justification of the initiative about giving back some MVET money to the little guy is no longer important, when it looks like it may not be real? Now the justification is the increased control of government by the voters, since that also sells in the polls? "

Don't get conspiratorial on us. I didn't write I-695. I couldn't pick Tim Eyman out of a crowd of one. I don't necessarily speak for anyone but myself. I am telling you why I support it. To me, the taxpayer approval of future tax and fee increases IS important. It apparently is to a lot of other people too.

-- Gary Henriksen (henrik@harbornet.com), September 16, 1999.

Gary, I think that you have the same interest as the promoters of I- 695. It is a Trojan Horse of a sort. The greatest appeal to the common man is the reduction of license tabs to the flat $30 per annum, however the most radical part is the change in our representative form of government. We elect representatives to study the issues, learn more about them than we as the general public know and then balance all the relevant competing interests for the good of the body politic. Everyone doesn't agree, but it is a method of allowing our elected representatives to concentrate on the job of governance while we common folk go about our daily business. I-695 turns that paradigm on its head. Each one of us is supposed to spend our days at our regular jobs and our nights studying all the various problems that the government is trying to solve to decide whether to value a solution enough to give any money to it in the way of taxes. That might have been workable 200 years ago when issues and times were simpler, but it isn't workable now. I-695 is a reactionary response to our national history and experience of representative government.

-- David (unified@whidbey.net), September 16, 1999.

== Gary, I think that you have the same interest as the promoters of I- 695. It is a Trojan Horse of a sort. The greatest appeal to the common man is the reduction of license tabs to the flat $30 per annum, ==

Not according to the latest poll data...70+% for voting vs. 60+% for car tabs

== however the most radical part is the change in our representative form of government. ==

Our opinions differ.

== We elect representatives to study the issues,learn more about them than we as the general public know and then balance all the relevant competing interests for the good of the body politic. ==

And if they DID that job, I-695 would never have been necessary.

== Everyone doesn't agree, but it is a method of allowing our elected representatives to concentrate on the job of governance while we common folk go about our daily business. I-695 turns that paradigm on its head. Each one of us is supposed to spend our days at our regular jobs and our nights studying all the various problems that the government is trying to solve to decide whether to value a solution enough to give any money to it in the way of taxes. That might have been workable 200 years ago when issues and times were simpler, but it isn't workable now. I-695 is a reactionary response to our national history and experience of representative government. ==

So, which is it? Overthrow the old system which "isn't workable now", or "turn that paradigm on it's head"? Can't have it both ways.

Maybe you should come down from Mt. Whidbey to where the REAL "common folk" struggle to pay the inexorable rise of taxes while their own wages can't keep up with the CPI. When you can't pay your rent and car tabs all in the same month, we'll talk.

WA resident ==

-- David (unified@whidbey.net), September 16, 1999.

-- WA resident (WAres@my-deja.com), September 16, 1999.

WA Resident (since there is no name he must be the amorphous "Everyman")wrote: "When you can't pay your rent and car tabs all in the same month, we'll talk."

Why couldn't you pay both in the same month? Perhaps because you didn't budget ahead of time for the license renewal that you knew was coming, but wanted to avoid thinking about? If federal income taxes weren't deducted as withholding from your monthly paycheck you probably wouldn't be able to pay the annual amount and your rent in the same month either because you would have spent all your paycheck instead of setting some aside to pay the annual tax bill in the month it was due.

Don't use I-695 as your sacrificial lamb for your lack of planning and budgeting.

"

-- David (unified@whidbey.net), September 16, 1999.

David, you state: "Perhaps because you didn't budget ahead of time for the license renewal that you knew was coming, but wanted to avoid thinking about?"

What a perfect example to throw bcak at the lying 'mother-state' who claims the Apocalypse is upon us because of I-695.

They knew it was coming but the just ignored it because they didn't feel like creating a sensible budget

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), September 16, 1999.