What is an Escape Assesment

Silvaire

Silvaire

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Silvaire
I just got a letter from the county entitled: NOTICE OF PROPOSED ESCAPE ASSESMENT

I've read it three times and have no clue what the heck they're talking about. It references my airplane.
 
A quick Google search gets the following:
An escape assessment is the increased amount in real property valuation over the regular assessed valuation from a delayed reappraisal of the property and/or an erroneously applied homeowner's exemption valuation reduction.
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According to the Sacramento County Assessor, “An “escape assessment” is a correction to a property’s assessed value on the local property tax roll. The correction is made because the Assessor’s Office discovered a property or a taxable event that should have been assessed but was not. Current and/or prior year tax rolls may be affected. The most common reasons for an escape assessment are overlooked or unreported new construction, a missed change of ownership… or the removal of an exemption.”
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A Notice of Proposed Escape Assessment is a notice served on you by your local council informing you of a raise in your property tax. This raise may be primarily due to an improvement or building in your property which they were not aware of and which accrues an additional amount of property tax. You can appeal against the tax through your local assessor's office.
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So what did you do to your airplane to make it more valuable that the county just found out about?
 
Also, why "escape assessment"? Friggn' lawyer babble, use plain English for crying out loud.
 
Yea I did the Google thing but I don't have any of those events, it's a 1958 Champ and I've owned it for five years. It hasn't shot up in value as far as I know.
 
Silvaire said:
Yea I did the Google thing but I don't have any of those events, it's a 1958 Champ and I've owned it for five years. It hasn't shot up in value as far as I know.
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Then contact the county and ask for an explanation -- there's probably appropriate contact information in the letter. Be ready to present some valuations like Vref or Blue Book to support your contention that it has not changed in valuable (and possibly even gone down rather than up in the last five years).
 
Silvaire said:
Yea I did the Google thing but I don't have any of those events, it's a 1958 Champ and I've owned it for five years. It hasn't shot up in value as far as I know.
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Have they been taxing you on it? ;) I have never heard of that term, but I don't hang out at the tax office. :D
 
Have you ever paid the county taxes on it? Where I live, the county assessor is supposed to check all the hangers once a year for airplanes and send out that letter if yours isn't on the tax rolls.

If your state/county has an exemption for historical aircraft, you may just have to declare it as such. If not, they probably want about 1% of it's value for all the years it's been in your possession and in the county.
 
If you've paid taxes on the airplane, they're trolling for "rich" people at airports now that they've tapped out the locals. If not, they're catching up and want to be paid. :)
 
Old Geek said:
Have you ever paid the county taxes on it? Where I live, the county assessor is supposed to check all the hangers once a year for airplanes and send out that letter if yours isn't on the tax rolls.

If your state/county has an exemption for historical aircraft, you may just have to declare it as such. If not, they probably want about 1% of it's value for all the years it's been in your possession and in the county.
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In our county, if you fail to report the purchase of taxable property, you could be fined, in addition to back taxes and interest. It's up to the owner to fess up, not to the tax accessor to find you.

An airplane that old and low value should be a neglible tax.
 
Been paying the taxes since I bought it. If it's worth what they are saying I'd like to sell it to them and buy a real nice plane :rolleyes:
 
They have assessed you to be able to escape, so they're going to tax you out of that ability.
 
We don't have that foolishness in Texas... if YOU own the plane (not a corporation), you don't pay personal property tax on it. Sales tax can be a ***** though....
 
Doggtyred said:
We don't have that foolishness in Texas... if YOU own the plane (not a corporation), you don't pay personal property tax on it. Sales tax can be a ***** though....
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Samey-same in Colorado and yes they do check airports.
 
One of the reasons cited is removal of an exemption...maybe the tax law changed and an exemption you enjoyed has gone away?
 
Okay here's the scoop:

Apparently I have not been paying the taxes on it. I assumed I was but I guess that's my other airplane. The reason I haven't been paying the taxes is because they never sent me a bill because I guess I just slipped through the cracks somehow (temporarily)

So I guess Escape in this respect means they want to "escape" from their screw up and get my money. :sad:
 
Silvaire said:
Okay here's the scoop:

Apparently I have not been paying the taxes on it. I assumed I was but I guess that's my other airplane. The reason I haven't been paying the taxes is because they never sent me a bill because I guess I just slipped through the cracks somehow (temporarily)

So I guess Escape in this respect means they want to "escape" from their screw up and get my money. :sad:
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So what's the tax on a $7500 airplane? No 'antique' exemption?
 
It's one and a quarter percent. The antique exemption is kind of a pain in the butt, you have to park it in a display area for a certain amount of time every month or quarter and get some sort of verification signature, not worth a buck fifty a year for me to go through it but there are quite a few who do. Mostly on principal I suppose.
 
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