The Swartz Report: Will property taxes be higher or lower in 2021?
By Donald Swartz, President and Principal of Swartz + Associates, Inc.
It was just over a year ago I wrote to everyone about an incident that changed my perspective about many things. As you may recall, on July 9th, while heading to my Las Vegas office on a bright Tuesday morning, an individual ran through a red light, hitting the Uber I was riding. Eight broken ribs, a separated shoulder, a broken clavicle and four fractured vertebrae later, I am feeling pretty good and amazed how much has changed these past 12 months.
Now it’s my turn to help be supportive and be the cheerleader, as so many were for me.
Last Tuesday, my father had quintuple bypass surgery. Yes, no typo, five bypasses! The surgery went as well as anyone could have expected for a man turning 89 in November. What to do, what to do… In this Coronavirus environment, all one can do is offer emotional support for the family. There is no visitation at the hospital. No hugs, no holding hands, no “just being there”. Only phone calls, Zoom setups during the week and words of encouragement. The true providers are the nursing staff, who serve both the medical needs of the patient and the emotional needs during this pandemic. Truly unbelievable.
And yet, my father remains optimistic that he will be heading home soon. And why not? He has always been optimistic and pragmatic about everything – family, friends, and his working professional career. Never, did he display negativity. While I try to emulate that in my life, it can be very challenging, especially in today’s world. Talk about role models, he’s top of the list.
Now on to the working front.
Last month, I mentioned one our employees, Mark Phillips, discovered an error by a state for the valuation of railcars. His uncovering generated millions of dollars of tax savings for all owners of railcars who had situs in that state. We submitted an article to our clients in the industry. Here is a link to that PDF. Please take a look if this is of interest.
Slowly but surely, our cases appealed in 2019 and earlier that have been delayed, postponed and/or pushed back are getting their “day in court”. The results have been very positive as various county assessor’s are working with us to resolve outstanding appeals from 2018 and 2019. This is a very good idea, as the system will again be backlogged due to the current appeals and the projection of 2021 appeals looming on the horizon.
There is no question in my mind, property tax valuations (both real and business personal property) are going to decrease in 2021 – the big question is whether the counties will recognize the downward swing caused by COVID-19.
As always, if you have any questions or comments please reach out to me directly – .
Stay healthy, stay safe and for everyone’s sake, please wear a mask in public settings!
We recently celebrated Father’s Day weekend and Juneteenth! I feel like Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Colbert as I write yet another blog from my home. The more things change, the more things remain the same……
This was a quote from a family member as we sat around the dinner table for the 50th consecutive day. That comment could not have held more truth. As we spent the last two weeks of March figuring out what in the world was going on and re-acclimated ourselves to a full household (this time full of consenting adults and not teenage children dealing with the pressures of adolescence, middle school and high school), April was filled with the “new routine”. April found three of us working our jobs remotely and the 4th finishing up second semester of his sophomore year of college.
One question we don’t have an answer for at this point is what the real estate market will look like going forward. Will office space (and the need for office space) change in look, feel and desirability? Over recent years, we’ve seen the exponential increase in online sales as consumers order more goods from the Internet and have them delivered directly to their residence. With stay at home orders in place, more people have turned to this mode of shopping, not only out of convenience but necessity.
Today, I participated in virtual roundtable discussion sponsored by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. This one hour conference via Zoom, consisted of 68 small business owners (or high level decision makers within their respective companies).
Like most of us, I have been watching the sweeping changes occurring in our lives over the past 10 days. What started as a potential nuisance has developed into a complete crisis. Whether you believe we, as a nation, have over-reacted or have not yet done enough to do our part, this is a generational event which demands calm and patience. We must listen to, and adhere to our governmental officials, both at the local and national levels.
As we bid good-bye to 2019, I wanted to identify a few of the major events of the year and goals for the 2020 year.
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I went back and reviewed my previous blogs and naturally, they focused on things I’ve been thankful for over the past year. If you’re a regular reader of my monthly blog, I feel I wrote my “thanksgiving” blog 
While the companies focus on different areas of the property tax arena, they are very complimentary. Companies who own railcars, undoubtedly have ownership interests in commercial/industrial real estate as well as machinery and equipment. The key is to now educate Indurante employees about Swartz products and how Swartz reviews assessments. Likewise, Swartz employees are learning what it looks like to handle several thousand property tax annual filings and the payment of thousands of annual tax bills on behalf of Indurante’s clients.