Oklahoma ad valorem forum, 10/2012, v. 21 no. 10

              Volume XXI, Issue X October 2012
The mission of the Ad Valorem Division of the Oklahoma Tax Commission is
to promote an ad valorem property tax system which is fair and equitable
to all taxpayers by implementing standard valuation methodology, tax law
conformity, and assessment administration compliance.
Oklahoma
Ad Valorem F O R U M
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“IAAO Zangerle Award Winner:
1997 and 2010”
Director’s Notes: Happy Halloween! It’s about time for the County Assessors Association Convention, and it is hard to
believe that this is the 101st anniversary of the Association. It seems like only a couple of weeks ago that
Monica and the officers were running around in 2010 planning for the 2011 special Assessors Convention for
the century celebration. When an organization reaches a 100, time flies.
The Ad Valorem Division has had a hectic fall—we say that every year, but this really has been an unusual
year. I know that the counties have been concerned about the special “test” audit the State Board directed
us to do, but walk in our shoes for a while. Think about how it’s been to work out hundreds of details, add
another audit to our field analyst’s schedule and basically forge a new trail to implement/test the new process
the State Board set up for county review. It’s been busy, but we’re making great progress.
We had a successful conference last month on the personal property schedule methodology. This is our
fourth year with this process, and it appears to be working well. We appreciate everyone’s participation. The
process we’ve used for the last three years has been more open and transparent than in past years. We had
a good turn-out of industry representatives and county assessors.
Larry Rawlings will post the first draft on November 1 with a ten-day comment period. The second draft
will be posted on December 3, and after review by the Commissioners, we will publish the final schedule
January 1, 2013. Anyone is welcome to make comments. (Send them to Cyndi Heath, cheath@tax.ok.gov)
Mike Isbell and I attended the Oklahoma Association of Tax Representatives meeting in Tulsa. The meeting
was productive and we had several questions from the group. OATR has fewer centrally assessed taxpayers
and more oil and gas companies with local property since the Texaco court case. There’s a lot of interest in
SQ 766 on intangibles, as you might imagine.
Joe Hapgood and his staff have completed the Equalization Studies for 2012, and he’s wrapping up the
“test” audit which will be submitted to the State Board Subcommittee. I would like to thank the counties in
helping our staff complete these studies. Thanks, also, to the Assessment & Equalization Analysts who traveled
all statewide finishing this important work for the State Board of Equalization subcommittee as well as the
work for the full Board meeting in late November.
Trina Williams and the forms committee are having the final forms meeting at the fall conference. This
year the committee revised sixteen forms. They will be posted on the OTC website and the assessor only site
on November 6th, which is the day after the general election. The changes range from spelling corrections
to clean up language and formatting. There is one new form for commercial moving of manufactured homes,
OTC Form 932. The gross family income qualifications for the personal property exemption on certain