Yes, deadline for tax appraisal protests really is confusing

Last week, a Star-Telegram editorial outlined some of the confusion surrounding various state-mandated deadlines for protesting tax appraisals. (“File tax protests on time, whenever that is,” Friday)

We at the Tarrant Appraisal District understand the confusion and try very hard to help property owners understand the law. We are committed to working on that.

However, for today, I want to share some the background and help local homeowners clearly understand what all this means to them.

Some appraisal notices in Tarrant County were mailed on April 1 with a stated deadline to file a protest by May 2. This is not a deadline set by TAD. The Texas Legislature set the deadline in Section 41.44 of the Tax Code.

The code says an owner of a single-family residential homestead initiating an appraisal protest must file a written notice of the protest “before May 1 or not later than the 30th day after the date that notice to the property owner was delivered.”

This year, because May 1 fell on a Sunday, the deadline is the next business day, which is Monday, May 2, as TAD’s notices stated. That’s pretty straightforward.

What can be confusing is that the same section of the tax code also says owners of single-family residential homesteads who miss the May 2 deadline are entitled to a hearing if they file a notice of protest before June 1.

The Texas tax code is complex, and this is certainly an example of that. Basically, the code includes two different deadlines for filing an appraisal protest for residence homesteads and different deadlines for other kinds of property.

The origin of the residence homestead deadline is House Bill 3496. When state Rep. John Otto drafted it in 2007, he offered the earlier deadline, as stated in his bill analysis, to encourage residential property owners to file their protests early to avoid what he called “the cattle call experience” of waiting in line behind commercial property owners for protest meetings and hearings at local appraisal offices.

However, he also maintained the second deadline of May 31.

TAD processes between 60,000 and 80,000 protests each year. The unfortunate reality is that the longer property owners wait to file a protest, the longer they may have to wait in line to talk with a TAD official.

By filing a protest sooner, the taxpayers may resolve their property tax disputes quicker, and the appraisal district is better positioned to certify the appraisal roll to taxing units on time. Everyone benefits from this process, the homeowner, the taxing units and the appraisal district.

That’s the background. So, what does this all mean to homeowners in Tarrant County?

Here’s the bottom line: We encourage compliance with the stated May 2 deadline to ensure homeowners get in and out of the process as quickly as possible.

However, I want to assure everyone that an owner who misses the May 2 deadline can still file a protest before June 1 and still have a hearing before the appraisal review board.

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Yes, deadline for tax appraisal protests really is confusing."