On March 15th of every year, the County of Maui sends its annual property tax assessment to property owners. Judging by the calls we have received and the discourse I have seen on Nextdoor (a bastion of neighborly conversation and rational thought 😉), many people received significant increases in their assessed value. I know that on my own property, the assessed value of the land my house sits on increased eighty-seven %. If you think your assessed value is high, you have the option of filing an appeal.
The deadline to file an appeal is April 9th. It is the same date yearly unless the 9th falls on a weekend or a holiday. This post provides a link to the form you must fill out, what the county requires you to prove in your appeal, and an overview of the appeals process.
Maui Property Tax Appeals Forms
You must fill out a Maui County Property Tax Appeal Form to file an appeal on your valuation or tax classification. The county requires a $75 fee to be included with your form. Make sure you carefully follow the instructions on the appeal form. Incomplete forms, forms that lack payment, or forms that are not post-marked or hand-delivered by the deadline will not be accepted. Forms should be mailed or delivered to:
County of Maui, Board of Review
110 ‘Ala’ihi Street, Suite 110
Kahului, HI 96732
If you are delivering the form in person, make sure you get there before the office closes at 4:00 PM on April 9th.
Grounds for Maui Property Tax Appeals
When you fill out the form, it asks for the basis for your appeal. Per the county, there are five grounds for appeal. These are taken verbatim from the county website.
A. Assessment of the property exceeds by more than twenty percent the assessment of market
value used by the director as the real property tax base.
B. Lack of uniformity or inequality, brought about by inability of the methods used or error in application
of the methods to the property involved.
C. Denial of an exemption to which the taxpayer is entitled and for which he has qualified.
D. Denial of the circuit breaker tax credit for which the taxpayer is entitled and for which the taxpayer
has qualified.
E. Illegality, on any ground arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States or the laws of the
State or the ordinances of the County in addition to the ground of illegality of the methods used in B
above.
Tax Appeal Hearings
If you fill out your form correctly with the correct payment and the correct date, you should receive a hearing notice 15 days in advance of the tax hearing. The hearing will be in front of a five-person board of review consisting of citizen volunteers. You can provide written testimony, or have an authorized representative at the scheduled hearing. If you have someone representing you, a letter of authorization is required.
When you or your representative are called to provide testimony, you have five minutes to present your case. If you are appealing the value of the assessment, you should provide clear evidence to justify the valuation of the property. That would include recorded, arms-length transactions (not between related parties or friends) from before June 30th of the year prior.
That June 30th date is especially important in the current real estate market. That means they are using sales data from at least 9 or 10 months ago and possibly longer, considering the slower sales volume over the last two years. If your argument is based on lower sales prices over the last few months, your evidence will not be considered.
It is worth reiterating that you need to make the case that your property is worth 80% or less of the assessed value. That is a pretty big difference in valuation.
The county’s assorted tax assessment appeals pages include guidelines on what they consider inadmissible data. Two things stood out to me as particularly important. They will not consider the assessed value of other properties unless you are making a case that the tax assessment process showed “illegal methods or lack of uniformity.”
The other item that stood out was that “increases in assessed value between years” are considered inadmissible. In other words, the significant increase I saw in my assessed land value is not grounds for an appeal or evidence that will be considered. The board will judge your appeal of the current assessed value based solely on arms-length sales data from the prior fiscal year. Again, speaking to my own assessment this year, I wouldn’t have much of a case since the assessed value is within 20% of the value from last year.
When Do You Hear about Your Appeal?
The Board of Review could let you know your appeal status by the end of the hearing. They may also tell you that the evidence presented will be considered further before they respond. In either circumstance, they will mail you a formal notification of their decision in writing. If the taxpayer disagrees with the decision, they may make a further appeal to the Tax appeal court. You would need to reach out to the court to determine appropriate fees, forms, and deadlines.
A Couple of Other Notes on Tax Appeals
You must continue to pay your property taxes even if you are appealing an assessment or your property tax classification. If your appeal is successful, Maui County will refund the balance between what you paid and what you now owe. If you don’t pay, you may be subject to fees and penalties. You may also lose any tax exemptions, such as the homeowner or long-term rental exemptions.
It is also worth remembering that your annual tax bill is determined by two components: the tax assessment and the tax rate for the property’s particular tax classification. In his proposed budget for the next fiscal year, the mayor recommended that most tax rates remain the same, and the homeowner rate be decreased. This comes after a couple of years of increased tax rates for short-term rentals and non-owner occupied homes.
The Mayor’s budget proposal will still need to be reviewed by the Maui County Council. We should know the new tax rates by sometime in mid-late May or early June at the latest. We will post the new tax rates on this blog, just like the Maui Property Tax Rates for 24/25.
Last but not least, it is worth reiterating that you should read the instructions and criteria for appeals closely. The success rate for appeals is low. Appeals will be rejected if they don’t meet deadlines, fail to qualify for any of the five specified grounds for appeal, don’t include the fee, miss the hearing, don’t provide duplicate copies of their appeal to name some, but not all reasons why an appeal could be disqualified.
If you think your assessment may be high but are unsure if it fits the criteria of 20% or more over market value, you can contact our team to ask for comparable sales from your neighborhood and areas nearby. The comparable sales data could be helpful when making an informed decision on the merits of filing a Maui Property Tax appeal.
