Property Tax Suit (from The Source)

This was in The Source today. If you like it, go to www.stjohnvillarental.com and rent a st john villa.

St. John Group Files Suit Over Property-Tax Revaluationby Lynda Lohr
April 2, 2008 -- The St. John Unity Day Group filed a suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court essentially asking the Tax Assessor's Office to start over with its property-revaluation process and not assess or collect taxes until the situation gets resolved. "Our assessments were too high on St. John," said Unity Group member Lorelei Monsanto. The group, along with many other St. John residents, tried to get the government to do something about a situation that many fear will force St. John residents out of their homes and off their land. "Nobody was hearing us, so we had to do the next step," she said. While residents throughout the territory had their properties revalued, those on St. John face revaluations and tax bills that in many cases far exceeded those of property tax payers on other islands. Government House spokesman Jean Greaux said Wednesday he hadn't seen the suit, so he couldn't comment on specifics. However, he said the administration is addressing the St. John residents' concerns and is working on a plan to help alleviate the problem. "We're trying to get some happy medium," Greaux said. The Unity Day Group raised funds from a broad cross-section of St. John residents to hire Attorney James Derr to file the suit. The group does not want to make public the amount of money it raised, Monsanto said. Derr was instrumental in filing the case that sparked the entire revaluation process. Years ago he filed a case in District Court for a group of St. Thomas business owners who said the government unfairly taxes businesses in a different way than residential properties. The 2000 settlement eventually resulted in the court-ordered property revaluation, but residents continued to pay property taxes based on the 1998 values until the revaluation was complete and District Court's "special master" signed off on the case. That case -- usually referred to as the Berne case after one of the principals in the suit -- is now nearing completion, but the special master has not yet certified the revaluation. The situation took another turn when the Senate passed its version of Gov. John deJongh Jr.'s tax bill that assesses residential and commercial properties, as well as land and timeshares, at different rates. When the governor announced March 10 that he had signed the bill, he said he had "instructed the government's lawyers to file all appropriate motions necessary to expedite the lifting of the court's injunction on the issuance of real property-tax bills at the earliest possible date so that the bills can be issued, the taxes collected, and the disruption of both government services and payroll avoided." However, the bills can't go out until the special master gives his approval. The suit claims that because the revaluation process was so flawed and fundamentally erroneous, similar properties on all three islands were assessed at wildly different amounts. Therefore, the owners will pay unequal taxes. The suit indicates that the company hired to do the revaluation, Bearing Point, used different formulas and cost figures for St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John. In August 2007, figures obtained from Bearing Point by the Coral Bay Community Council indicated that St. John's base rate for houses stands at $360 per square foot. The St. Thomas rate was $93 a square foot. St. Croix's base rate stands at $89 a square foot. St. John land is valued at a base rate of $25.12 a square foot, while St. Thomas' is $7.41 a square foot and St. Croix's $2.78 a square foot. Numerous properties were not reassessed and people hired to collect the data were poorly trained, the suit claims. "As a result the data was gathered in a haphazard, inconsistent and arbitrary manner," the suit alleges. "Much of the data collected is erroneous and incorrect. Therefore, assessments based on said defective data is also erroneous and incorrect."