What does it take to create a tax statement for the 2023 tax cycle?

Assessor’s Office Duties

Assesses and maintains property value.

Applies Credits & Exemptions such as Homestead, Homestead 65+, Military, Disabled Vet, Family Farm, and Business Two-Tier Credit. There are other exemptions we handle as well.

Apply Urban Revitalization

Tax year 2023 (July 2024 to June 2025)

• Balance their abstract and send that to the State by July 1st, 2023 (for the 2024-2025 tax year) then pass their balanced values on to the Auditor’s Office, if there are no last-minute changes mandated by the legislation.

• As an example, for the 2023 tax year, legislation passed to give anyone 65 years or older an additional homestead exemption in addition to their homestead credit, as well as an increased Military credit amount. This was signed into law in May of 2023 to be effective for the 2023 tax year retroactive to January 1, 2023. Due to this legislation, there were several changes that needed to be made within the County’s Real Estate Program to accommodate these changes. The application to receive this additional exemption was due in the Assessor’s Office by July 1st, 2023, which meant a short amount of time to get everything updated. All 2,500 of these homestead exemption applications that were received were processed and applied to each parcel manually. Due to these changes, the Assessor’s Office was not able to give the Auditor’s Office the values that they needed until late July.

• Assessment Rolls are sent to property owners in March/April if their assessed value has changed. Property owners have the opportunity to dispute this assessment change in an Informal Appeal or Formal Appeal applied for in April to the Board of Review. The Board of Review begins in regular session beginning May 1st of each year.

Auditor’s Office

Auditor calculates taxes.

• Calculates taxes for tax year 2023 (which will be collected in September 2024 and March 2025) based on Values, Credits, TIF Districts, Business Two-Tier Credit.

• Upon receiving values from the Assessor’s Office, the Auditor’s Office must balance all value changes, TIF districts, credits and exemptions that occur during that year.

• The rates needed to calculate property taxes are sent to the Auditor’s Office from the State of Iowa (Department of Revenue and Department of Management) throughout the year.

• The rollback (Assessment Limitation) value comes from the State around October. This assures us that the total increase in value for each class statewide is no more than a 3% increase.

• The rollback is multiplied by your assessed value which creates your taxable value, which the Auditor balances.

• Valuations are due to the State by January 1st of each year. This is the balanced value of all properties in Marshall County.

• Continuing with our example of 2023, when valuations were due, we discovered that the Department of Management changed their file format to include extra fields that we were unaware would affect the upload in December of 2023, thus resulting in more changes to the County’s Real Estate Program which needed to be completed.

• If there were any changes directed by the Board of Review for the year the Auditor is working in (2023), those changes are given to the Auditor’s Office in May after Board of Review has been completed.

• Around June 15, the certified tax rates are sent to the County by the Department of Management. These rates are then entered into the County computer program so taxes can be calculated.

• A final balancing of all data occurs after all rates are received.

• The Treasurer will print out test Tax Statements for the Auditor’s Office to verifying calculations are working properly.

• Certify taxes signed by Treasurer and Auditor. Tax Statements are ready to print.

Treasurer’s Office

Collects taxes & special assessments.

Delinquent Notices — Nov. 1 and May 1 each year

Tax Sales — May/June of each year Newspaper publication with finalization of online tax sale.

Apply Age & Income Credit, Tax Sales, Collection of taxes and distribution of taxes to appropriate entities.

• Import Gas & Electric from State

• Enter Age & Income Credit per parcel.

• Mobile Home Park Tax Listing Report is sent out to Mobile Home Park Owners for them to verify that the Mobile Homes listed in the report are accurate.

• Receives certified taxes from Auditor, then runs job to create Property Tax Statements.

• Send data to printer & printing company mails out Property Tax Statements.

• Start collecting property taxes on the 2023 assessed values.

(Payable September 2024, March 2025)

Anyone with questions about the process is encouraged to contact one of the following individuals: Blaze Wurr – Assessor, Deann Tomlinson – Treasurer, Danielle Fleming – Treasurer Account Supervisor, Melanie Ewalt – GIS Specialist, Sara Badger – Assistant Auditor/Recorder Real Estate/Board Agendas & Minutes or Nan Benson – Auditor/Recorder.