I was ready to put a 3 kilowatt solar array on top of my house. The new tax credits made it feasible to do so with a 10 year payoff and the concurrent lessening of green house gases being put into the atmosphere. And then I begin to worry about how the county assessor would be required to look at the value of the solar installation.Bernalillo County Clerk Karen Montoya told me that the County would have to come reassess the house because of the building permit being issued to install the system. That means a sizeable increase in taxes.
She said that Representative Mimi Stewart tried introduced a bill a couple of years ago to fix this, but that it got nowhere. Montoya said they would only assess the value of the solar system and not the whole house, but that will still cause an increase of $400-$500 a year on my property taxes. This makes the payout time increase by 50%.
If the Governor calls a special session this needs to be fixed. Iwill not install this system until this is fixed. This means that green jobs and development suffers. It is a true disincentive.
2 comments:
I respect what you've accomplished in your public life and enjoy your blog, so please don't get upset with this commment,
But let me get this right, you're going to increase the value of your residence, but you don't want to pay additional property taxes? Would you object if you added on a room and your taxes went up? From a strictly tax paying standpoint, what's the difference?
The energy tax credits are your reward for presumed civic-minded behavior. It seems to me you want to double dip (at other taxpayers' expense ultimately).
Isn't just doing the right thing good enough? 10 year pay out or 15? Does it really matter?
It is not a deal killer for me, but it should be a government policy on climate change that this not happen. If I add a new room or improvements to the house that is different. Much different. Additional taxes should be paid.
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