Valuation Notice

• Notifies you of the Assessor’s classification and determination of value on your property.
• Informs you of your right to appeal the Assessor’s classification and determination of fair market value.
• Compares last year’s value and tax to this year.
• Shows the amount of property tax charged by each entity.
• Notifies you of public hearings for taxing entities that plan to increase their tax revenues above the allowed ‘new growth’ amounts.

There are certain things to look for which may help you understand how property taxes are calculated and what you can do to adjust the tax amount you owe. For example:

• The valuation notice will give you a date, time and place for any taxing entity planning to raise their tax rate above what is normally allowed. You can attend these meetings and voice your concerns.
• Every Taxing Entity has a public hearing each year to set their budget. This budget may affect the amount of property tax you pay. Your attendance at the hearing will help you understand how your tax dollars for that entity are used and will give you the opportunity to ask questions and voice any concerns.
• If you feel that the assessed value of your property is higher than it is worth, you can appeal that value by submitting an appeal online, by email, mail or in person. Visit the Valuation Appeal page to learn more.

Note: There are tax relief programs available for qualified veterans with disabilities, deployed military, elderly or widowed with low income, blind, and those with disabilities and/or extreme hardship. If you fall into any of these categories you may be eligible for a reduction on your property taxes. Information and applications for these Tax Relief programs may be found on the Abatements Page

• Primary Residential: This property is used as a primary residence and is taxed on 55% of the market value shown.
• Non-Primary Residential: This property is not used as a primary residence (such as commercial property, vacation homes, non-Greenbelt agricultural land, industrial, etc.) and is taxed at 100% of the market value.
• Greenbelt Property: This property is used for agricultural purposes and is taxed under Greenbelt Guidelines. (The actual value used for taxation will be shown in parentheses.)
• Vacant: This is the catch all-phrase for all other unimproved property that is not otherwise classified and is taxed at 100% of the market value.

If the property is a primary residence, even though you do not see the exemption on your valuation notice, the residential exemption has been applied when making the tax calculation. Residential property is taxed on 55% of the market value. This amount, known as the taxable value or assessed value, does not appear on the Valuation Notice but will be on the actual Tax Notice. If it appears that you have not been given the residential reduction and are entitled to it, contact the Utah County Assessor’s Office

The Valuation Notice does not reflect payments made nor does it show deductions for property tax relief (i.e. Circuit Breaker, Abatement, Blind, Veterans with Disabilities and Deployed Military). This information will be on the Tax Notice.

Note: If you have applied for tax relief and your application was completed prior to the time when the Valuation Notices were printed, the following message, "Your Tax Abatement has been received but does NOT appear on this notice." will appear on the lower half of the notice, directly above the "PUBLIC BUDGET MEETING INFORMATION" box. If the message is not there, IT DOES NOT necessarily mean that your application was rejected. It is likely that the application had not yet been processed at the time the valuation notices were printed.

Every taxpayer should receive a valuation notice and a tax notice to inform them of their property value and tax status. If a bank or mortgage company pays your property taxes they will request a copy of your tax bill from the Utah County Treasurer's Office. When you receive your Tax Notice, there is a note which states, “Mortgage Company that requested your tax info:”. If your mortgage company's name appears in that space they have already requested a copy. If not, you may wish to contact your mortgage company to ask if they will request that information.

Some properties may have more than one parcel number (for example, a small strip abutting your main property). Make sure that taxes on these are either paid by you or requested along with your main property by your mortgage company.

Utah County is responsible for notifying you of taxes levied by the various taxing entities, for collecting those taxes, and distributing the funds to the taxing entities. The following is an explanation of the most common taxing entities and what they use your tax money for. If you have additional questions, please contact the Taxing Entity directly for more detailed information.

Utah County

Tax money collected for Utah County is used to maintain a number of different programs. In addition to financing the operation of county government, tax dollars are used for law enforcement, the Health Department, public safety, roads, etc.

Schools

Utah County has three school districts: the Alpine School District, the Nebo School District, and the Provo City School District. You are charged taxes for one of the three districts depending on the geographic location of your property.

Cities & Towns

If you live within an area that has been incorporated as a city you are charged a tax for the services provided by that city. For more information regarding services provided by a city you may contact them directly.

Special Service Areas

Certain areas within Utah County provide a special public service that is unique to that area. Examples of these are services like dedicated road maintenance, cemeteries, dedicated law enforcement, etc. Citizens who live within these special services districts are charged property taxes to fund these dedicated services. If you have questions about a special service district you may contact them directly.

Sewer

If you live within the boundaries of a sewer district, you will be assessed a cost for maintaining sewer lines and services. Contact the sewer district shown on your notice if you have questions regarding sewer service.

Water

Everyone in Utah County is charged property taxes for the Central Utah Water Conservancy District. This charge helps pay the cost of collecting and distributing water to the various water districts and large scale water development projects like new reservoirs. If the city in which your property is located has elected to collect a portion of the cost of culinary water through property tax, you will also notice a line item for that charge. Depending on the area in which your property is located, you may be charged a fee for secondary water by the local water district.

Miscellaneous

For a better understanding of any other taxing entities and their functions, please contact those entities directly.

All property owners in the state share in the responsibility of educating our citizens whether you own vacant ground, commercial property or residential property.

Depending on the location of your property, you may have more than one charge for water on your notice. Every property owner in Utah County will have a charge for Central Utah Water Conservancy District. If you own property within the boundaries of another water district, you may have a charge for water in that district also. Please see the question about taxing entities and their purposes for a more detailed explanation of those water charges.

In the state of Utah all property taxation is done on the basis of geographical location. Simply put, the physical location of your property determines what property tax you will be charged.

For example, if you have vacant ground located within the geographical boundaries of the Alpine School District, but your home is actually located in the geographical boundaries of the Nebo School District, you will pay property taxes to both Alpine School District and Nebo School District. Even though your children may attend schools in the Nebo School District, because the vacant ground you own falls within the geographical area of the Alpine School District, by law the ASD has a right to charge and collect property taxes from you, even though your children do not benefit from that tax.

This charge is for the evaluating, calculating, billing, collecting and apportioning of property taxes. The State Legislature requires counties to show this levy separately from the normal operating costs of counties to better reflect the cost of general services and not the additional costs incurred from the collection of taxes. There are two separate levies, a statewide rate and a local rate.

All property owners in Utah share a portion of the total statewide cost of assessing and collecting property taxes. This state levy is used by the Utah State Tax Commission to fund the state's assessing and collection responsibilities.

The Utah County - Local Assessing levy funds the departments in the county government that are directly involved in property tax assessment and collection. Those are the Tax Administration department in the Auditor's office, the County Assessor's office, the County Recorder's office, and the County Treasurer's office.

A Taxing Dist is a geographical area. Each area is made up of a number of entities; (i.e. county, city, school, water district, sewer district, etc.) The entities whose boundaries cover your property make up a geographical area known as a taxing district, which we assign a taxing district number.

The parcel number is an identification number for your property. The Utah County Recorder’s Office has books showing the dimensions and location of all properties in the county. The first two numbers identify which book your property is in. The next three numbers show the page in that book and the last four numbers identify which parcel on that page. When contacting the county about your property, it helps to have your parcel number for quicker reference. These maps are also available on our Land Records and Maps pages.

Many properties in Utah County do not have a physical address. Over the years there have been numerous deeds recorded which transfer only a few feet in someone's back yard to their neighbor which creates a new parcel. Sometimes deeds will not have an accurate description and a small section of a lot must be given a new land serial number but there is no real address which can be attached to that new number. Also, much of the agricultural land is accessed by dirt roads and don't have any street numbers to attach. If there is an address in the Recorder’s ‘Property Address’, it will show on the notice. You can use the Utah County Parcel Map to help you to identify your property location if there is nothing listed on the notice.

The best way to find out where each property is located is to visit the Recorder’s Office located on the first floor of the County Administration Bldg or use the PARCEL MAP to look up the location of your property. The Utah County Land Records page also has a lot of other valuable information about your property. It is a good idea to keep a list of your parcel numbers and the location of the property identified by that parcel number for future reference.

Combining two or more properties together is possible in certain cases. Here are some qualifications that will help you know if you can combine two properties into one taxing parcel.

1. The properties must be contiguous. (Next to each other)
2. Ownership records for both pieces must be identical.
3. The properties must be within the same taxing area.

Visit Utah County Recorder's Page for information on how to combine properties.

‘ET AL’, 'et al', or ‘etal’ is a legal term for ‘and others’. Some properties are recorded with a number of different owners and, due to limited space on the notice, it is not always possible to include all recorded owners. If ‘etal’ appears on your notice after the name, there are other names with recorded ownership on this property. You may contact the Recorder’s Office for a list of all recorded owners on the property.

In certain circumstances, taxing entities are allowed to recover lost revenues resulting from large reductions due to local or state appeals. When the state or county reduces the value of these properties due to an appeal or court order, the county is required to recalculate the amount of taxes originally owed by the reduced agency and refund any overpayments. This money is then taken out of each taxing entity's expected revenue from current property tax distributions. If an entity is eligible to impose a judgement levy to recoup these funds, they must go through the Truth in Taxation process.

The Valuation Notice does not notify you if there are delinquent taxes on your property. The Tax Notice you receive in October will show which prior years taxes on the property are delinquent and give a contact number for the Treasurer to call for a payoff amount. The amount of the delinquent tax is not included with the total amount of taxes you owe for the current year. If your notice states that taxes are delinquent, you should contact the Treasurer’s Office for information on which years are delinquent and the total amount due.

The date printed by this statement shows the last time the physical components, specific to this property, were updated in the Assessor’s system.

The answer could be one of three reasons:

• There may have been a problem with the deed that was filed to transfer title of the property, or the deed may never have been recorded.
• The deed to transfer title may have been recorded after the cutoff date for printing the notice.
• If a portion of this property was sold, or if there was any change in description (no matter how insignificant that change may have been), the name and address on the notice will show as it appeared on County records as of January 1st of that year.

The most common reason for not receiving a notice is because the Treasurer’s Office was not informed of a taxpayer’s new address. Any time you change your mailing address or record a deed, be sure to notify the Treasurer’s Office of your new address for each piece of property you own in Utah County. CLICK HERE to submit your address updates online. Other reasons may include:

• A problem with the deed that was filed to transfer title of the property, or the deed may never have been recorded.
• The deed to transfer title or a change of address card may have been submitted after the cutoff date for printing the notice.
• If the name or address was changed since the first of this year and a portion of this property was sold, or if there was any change in description, (no matter how insignificant that change may have been), the name and address on the notice will show as it appeared on the records as of January 1st of that year.
• It may have been lost in the mail. It's rare, but it happens.