Board of Property Tax Appeals (BoPTA)

Notice:  The deadline for filing a Petition to Appeal will be 5pm on Tuesday, January 2, 2017, due to December 31, 2017, falling on the weekend and the New Year holiday closure of the Records & Licenses office on Monday, January 1, 2018.

The following dates have been set for the Board of Property Tax Appeals:

• Convening Meeting - February 28, 2018
• Appeal Hearings - March 8, 13 and 14, 2018
• Rescheduled Hearings - To Be Determined as needed
• Adjournment Meeting - April 6 or 10, 2018

If needed, additional hearing dates will be scheduled and posted.  Board of Property Tax Appeals meetings and hearings are held in the Benton County Board of Commissioners Building, 205 NW 5th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330.

The Board of Property Tax Appeals (BoPTA) consists of three non office-holding residents of the county and is responsible for hearing taxpayer appeals for reduction of the real market or assessed value of property. BoPTA members are appointed by the Benton County Commissioners on or before October 15^th each year and the term ends on June 30^th. The current BoPTA members are: Andrew Decker, Nicholas Fowler, Kathleen Hutchinson, Shahnewaz Ahmad and Jay Dixon.

In Oregon, property taxes are assessed against real property, machinery and equipment, manufactured structures, business personal property and floating property. Oregon has an ad valorem tax system – the property taxes you pay are based on the value the county Assessor establishes for your property. Property values may be appealed to BoPTA as prescribed by Oregon law beginning each year the day after tax statements are mailed, usually sometime between the middle to end of October, through the end of the year December 31^st.

If you are not in agreement with the value placed on your property as shown on the tax statement, you are encouraged to contact the Assessor to request a review of property values prior to filing an appeal.  The Benton County Assessors office can be reached at (541) 766-6855 and is located at 4077 SW Research Way, Corvallis, OR 97333.  To help answer common questions, the Benton County Assessor provides the following FAQ section on their website.  An appeal before BoPTA would be the next step if an agreeable solution is not reached.

The State Department of Revenue or DOR provides instructions and forms on their website that may be printed out, completed and filed with the appropriate County Clerk by the December 31^st deadline or next business if the deadline falls on a holiday or the weekend. Please, review the instructions included with the petition form to complete the petition correctly.  Petitioners are encouraged to include as much information possible in support of their case, as the burden of proof falls on the Petitioner. The appeal process is not to challenge the taxes but to appeal the current year real market, maximum assessed, specially assessed or assessed value of the property. For example, if the request is for the board to reduce the market value of the property, evidence presented should prove what the property’s value is, not just the amount of taxes being paid.

Possible documentation used to support the Petitioner's value of the property could include:

• Recent sale of the property
• Fee appraisal of the property dated close to January 1^st of the assessment year which reflects the property’s value
• Sales information about comparable properties
• Proof that the property had been listed for sale on the open market for reasonable period of time at a price below the real market value listed on the tax roll
• Cost to repair the property (i.e., written estimates, invoices, etc.)

It is advisable to submit supportive documentation with the filed petition, however, if there is no evidence submitted with the completed petition, the Petitioner is encouraged to send/bring in 1 copy of complete evidence/materials up to 2 days prior of the scheduled hearing, or bring in 5 copies of complete evidence to hand out at the hearing. All materials should not exceed legal size (8½” x 14”) and evidence is not returned to the Petitioner.

To start the appeal process in Benton County, petitions are received ONLY in the County Clerk’s Office beginning after tax statements have been mailed out in mid-October through the deadline, 5:00pm on December 31^st or next business if the deadline falls on a holiday or the weekend.  Petitions can be returned by the following methods:

Hand Delivered to the Benton County Clerk Office, 120 NW 4th Street, Room 4, Corvallis, OR 97330 by 5 pm, December 31^st. Petitions cannot be dropped off in an exterior mail slot or delivered to another office.
Mailed to the Benton County Clerk Office, 120 NW 4th Street, Room 4, Corvallis, OR 97330 with a postmark on or before the filing deadline, December 31^st.
Faxed to the Benton County Clerk Office, (541) 766-6675, received in the office by midnight of the filing deadline, December 31^st, as evidenced by the electronic generated information on the Benton County Clerk’s fax machine.
Electronically Filed with the BoPTA Clerk, received by midnight of the filing deadline, December 31^st, as evidenced by the Benton County computer network.

DISCLAIMER: The Benton County Clerk's cannot guarantee delivery and timely receipt for petitions submitted for any method utilized by the petitioner, other than hand delivery to the Benton County Clerk Office. Therefore, it is the Petitioner’s responsibility to make certain the petition has been successfully received by the filing deadline, December 31^st.

BoPTA hearing, schedule, location and time allotment

Hearings are scheduled to begin in the middle of February and the process is completed prior to April 15^th [ORS 309.026]. Petitioners who request to appear before the Board will receive a notice of the scheduled hearing, and hearings are conducted at the Benton County Board of Commissioners Building, 205 NW 5th Street, Corvallis, OR 97330. Each residential property hearing will be scheduled for 15 minutes in length.  Commercial property hearings (appraised by the Benton County Assessor) are 20 minutes in length. Industrial property appeals where the property has been appraised by DOR are not heard at the County BoPTA level, they are heard in the Oregon Tax Court, Magistrate Division.

Appeals or complaints regarding BoPTA decisions can be submitted to the Oregon Tax Court, Magistrate Division

The appeal/complaint forms can be obtained from the County Assessor or by calling the Magistrate Division at (503) 986-5650 or 1-800-773-1162.

You may also visit the court’s website at: http://courts.oregon.gov/tax.

To file your appeal/complaint with the court, send your filing fee and the complaint form to:
Clerk, Oregon Tax Court
Magistrate Division
1163 State Street
Salem OR 97301-2563

You may also personally deliver your complaint to the court at:
1241 State Street,3rd Floor
Salem, Oregon 97301