The Swartz Report: Appeals Updates, Big Savings for a Client and Growing Our Pipeline

By Donald Swartz, President

Happy Spring to everyone! If March comes in like a lion and out like a Lamb, how would one describe the property tax world in March and April (and May and June…)???

I would propose the following – IN like a Super Bowl Experience (very controlled but tens of thousands of people) and OUT like an NFL Draft experience (not so controlled AND hundreds of thousands of people.) ???? I feel this analogy is appropriate as a nod to our Kansas City Chiefs and a nod to Kansas City hosting the NFL draft in two weeks!

Appeals Updates

Appeals in Kansas are taking place this month; the appeal deadline in Iowa is the end of April; Missouri values are out with informal deadlines in May and the formal appeal deadlines in July; Colorado deadlines at the end of May.

Railcar state filings have been ongoing in March, through April and finally rolling to a stop (pun intended…) in Mid-May.

Whew! There is a lot happening with appeals right now.

I am very fortunate to have a great employee base dedicated to making things happen and I want to focus on two scenarios  – “out of the box” thinking and re-investing in yourself and your company.

Client Success Story: A $500,000 Refund

Noelle Giacomino reviewed a situation for a long time Indurante client. Last year, she was reviewing prior year’s assessments and something seemed out of line. After more research, she believed she had uncovered a situation where several railcars in Texas may have been duplicated in assessment. Counties had valued the same marked cars twice. Once, as owned cars and again, as leased cars.

Noelle had determined separate entities had reported the same cars to multiple jurisdictions. After discussing with our client, we were given permission to pursue potential refund opportunities. I will skip the details, but the issue was recently resolved and we were successful in achieving a refund of 2021 taxes paid to the tune of almost $500,000.

Noelle’s attention to detail, relationship with the client and “out of the box thinking” made this tremendous outcome possible.

Focus on Building Our Pipeline

As I mentioned previously, David Swartz joined the company in January. The idea being, David would be a great “connector” for increasing business relationships in the Des Moines market and beyond. I have not previously invested in a “business development” employee.

As analysts and technicians, our strengths are reviewing properties and understanding how to present our cases to the various jurisdictions. Securing new clients? Not really an organized strategy for us previously… Enter David, with a strategy to effectively reach out to contacts, and away we go!

David has secured several new clients in his 3+ months and we now have over $400,000,000 (and counting) in property values for review in new business. Shocking, surprising, exceeding expectations? YES, YES and YES! Now it is our turn as analysts to effectively represent our clients. I am confident we are up to the challenge.

As always, I appreciate your readership and comments – keep them coming!

If we can assist you in your property tax needs, please reach out to me.
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Thank you again for your continued support!