MISSION STATEMENT
&
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROPOSAL

Our mission is giving Washington State property owners property tax relief via PREDICTABILITY.

PREDICTABILITY means our property taxes will not substantially increase year after year. (Note: Levies are a separate issue. Voter approved levies increase our taxes; education levies are 50% of our property tax bills, state spending is 25%.)

While there are many approaches to reforming our outdated property tax system, achieving a cap on property assessments has been the original goal of Property Owners for Predictable Tax Now and would be a first key step to checking runaway property taxes.

Freezing property assessments can only be achieved by amending Washington State's Constitution.

For more information, go to Washington's official legislative website:
http://www1.leg.wa.gov/legislature


OUR PREDICTABLE TAX PROPOSAL

* Limit individual assessed values to an increase of 1% per year as of year of passage

* No roll back (unlike Prop. 13 in California), thus NO taxing district, including schools, fire, or police would lose revenue

* 1% increase limit or market value - whichever is less to allow for downturns in the real estate market

* Would apply to all properties (residential, commercial, industrial, current use, open space and timber). No split roll.

* New sales would be capped at purchase price

* Would not apply to new construction. New construction would be added to the limited value

RESULTS:

* Would provide individual property owners with PREDICTABILITY for their future tax obligations - ability to plan and budget for the future

* Property owners in areas of exploding real estate markets would not be taxed out of their homes due to prohibitive tax bills

* Citizens would have a greater trust in the State's property tax system

* Encourages pride of ownership by not penalizing homeowners for improvements

* Revenue Neutral: regular levy districts (State schools, fire districts, local government etc.) would all continue to receive their 1% increase, plus new construction bonus each year as guaranteed by Initiative 747

* Voter approved bonds and school levies would receive all approved revenue - revenue neutral

WE ARE OPEN TO OTHER APPROACHES TOWARD MEANINGFUL PROPERTY TAX REFORM