A group of Uintah County elected officials attended Tuesday’s Vernal Chamber meeting and took some time to present on the hot topic of the proposed property tax increase. Uintah County Treasurer Wendi Long shared that property owners in Uintah County should have received by now their Tax Notice in the mail. The notice shows all the taxing entities that property owners pay into. All the money paid does not stay with Uintah County. Once received, Long disperses the funds to the different entities. Uintah County is just one of the taxing entities and is the only one going through a proposed tax increase. The overall increase if you include all the entities is at 12 percent. Specific to just Uintah County as a taxing entity, the increase is just over 73 percent. Long emphasized that this is a proposed tax increase that is not finished and that the 2024 budget is still a work in progress. Long also presented a tax rate analysis to explain in part the reason for the proposed tax increase. Long explained that the State of Utah uses the total value of a county to determine the certified tax rate needed so the county can collect the proper amount of funds to operate. If the property values in the county go up, the rate comes down so the county collects the same amount of money needed to operate. If the value goes down, the rate goes up so the county still has the amount needed to operate. Long said that from 2016 to 2022, the Uintah County Commission chose to adopt a tax rate lower than the certified tax rate recommended by the State. Long says those decisions have now affected the county’s ability to collect the needed money to operate. As a result, for that 7 year period, the taxpayer saved $278 dollars on a medium priced home. The proposed increase this year on that same home is $174 dollars.
