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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesProperty Tax Rally Draws Nearly 200

Property Tax Rally Draws Nearly 200

Calvin George (left, front) saw the value of his vacant land jump from $19,360 in 2005 to $108,100 in 2006.Nearly 200 people turned out Monday for an update on the territory’s property tax situation at a rally sponsored by the St. John-based V.I. Unity Day Group.
The rally was held at Winston Wells Ballfield in Cruz Bay.
The Unity Day Group spent the last four years crunching numbers and looking at issues in an effort to keep St. John residents from being forced out of their homes by high property taxes.
"The lower-priced properties in the Virgin Islands, primarily St. John, are over assessed; the higher-priced properties are under assessed," Unity Day Group President Lorelei Monsanto said.
To demonstrate the point, the Unity Day Group passed out a flyer that showed a 686-square-foot wooden shack with rotten floors and no electricity or plumbing that sits on under one acre of land. It was valued at $1.1 million when Bearing Point, the company hired by the government to do revaluations, did its revaluation of all the territory’s property several years ago.
By comparison, the entire 40-unit Sirenusa condominium project on nearly five acres of land is valued at $1.2 million. The developer purchased the land alone for $2.5 million.
St. John resident Calvin George outlined how his vacant land at Enighed was valued at $19,360 in 2005, but after Bearing Point’s revaluation, the 2006 value jumped to $108,100.
"That is very erroneous," he said, later displaying those tax bills.
Government officials from the Lieutenant Governor’s office, which oversees property tax collection, and Unity Day Group members sparred from time to time over various points, but as the rally came to a close, the Rev. Darryl Williams of the St. Thomas-based Church of Apostles Doctrine urged those in the audience to action, while exhorting government officials to be fair.
"Forget the job and just do what’s right," he said.
The 2006 tax bills are going out in June or July, Tax Assessor Bernadette Williams said. She said they’re due in 90 days, but if you don’t pay then, you won’t face any interest or penalties thanks to a move by the Legislature. She said if the bills are delinquent, the government could "attach" the properties.
However, Raymond Williams, chief of staff at the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, said as the rally wound down that there are no plans afoot to take anyone’s property for non-payment of taxes.
Williams said there are no dates set to send out the 2007, 2008 and 2009 property tax bills.
"They could have billed at the 1998 rate all along," said Pam Gaffin, Unity Day Group’s data collector.
The property tax problem has its roots in a U.S. District Court suit by St. Thomas commercial property owners whose properties were valued differently than residential properties. An injunction against the government was issued in 2003, which called, in part, for a revaluation of all real properties.
In the early stages of the case, the government sent out tax bills using the 1998 values, but when the 2006 bills were due, it stopped issuing them. The government issued, but later rescinded, the 2006 tax bills that reflected the new values when the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the bills were invalid because the 2003 injunction had not been lifted.
Property owners who paid those wrongly issued 2006 bills will get a credit, Williams said.
The case is yet to be settled because the court hasn’t agreed that the government has a functioning Board of Tax Review.
After Monsanto said that the government paid Bearing Point more than $6.5 million to do the revaluations, Attorney James Derr, who represents St. Thomas commercial property owners and the Unity Day Group, said he’s tried repeatedly to get a copy of the Bearing Point contract to no avail.
Monsanto also noted that Bearing Point filed for bankruptcy.

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