PROPERTY TAX New bills to be more informative

Credit card payments for property taxes will be accepted next summer.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
SALEM -- Columbiana County taxpayers will be seeing a different, more informative property tax bill after the first of the year.
Treasurer Linda Bolon said Thursday that she's finalizing plans for a new bill that will include more details, including a pie chart depicting how tax dollars are spread among different governmental entities.
Property owners will be able to see that school district's get most property tax money, about 80 percent, with much of the remainder going to townships and county agencies.
Also featured on the new bill will be the property's fair-market value, which represents the county's estimate of what the property would sell for.
Thirty-five percent of the fair-market value is used to calculate how much is owed in taxes.
On the back of the bill will be definitions of tax-bill terms such as market value, full tax rate and effective tax rate.
The new tax bills will be larger. For years, bills have measured about four inches long by about nine inches wide.
The new bills will be about the size of a sheet of typing paper. Bolon is still trying to finalize the cost of converting to the new bills.
More informative
But she's already convinced it will be less expensive because the paper on which they're printed isn't as thick, postage will be less because the new bills will be lighter, and the printing company will be handling most of the mailing chores.
Up until now, treasurer's office employees have had to stuff the thousands of bills in their mailing envelopes -- a time-consuming process, Bolon explained.
Bolon said many counties, with the state's prompting, are designing more informative tax bills.
The county is going further than state requirements by including the pie chart, she said.
Property tax bills are mailed twice a year, with about 75,000 bills to go out in January. A second mailing takes place in late June. Taxpayers are likely to see another change in how their property taxes are handled in 2004.
Bills sent next summer may be paid by credit card, which will be more convenient for some taxpayers, Bolon added.
leigh@vindy.com