Difficult Property Tax Refund Questions

Refund and release questions are the most popular and most difficult questions I receive from North Carolina tax officials.  Rarely do these questions have easy answers.

For the basics on refunds and releases under GS 105-381, please see this blog post.  Today’s post dives into more complex refund and release dilemmas pulled from recent emails. How would you have resolved them? If you disagree or have other good examples to share, shoot me an email at mclaughlin@sog.unc.edu

Remember that the tax office can recommend how refund and release requests be resolved, but the final authority to make these decisions rests with the board (or the manager/finance officer/attorney, if so delegated by the board for refunds less than $100).

1. Too much land

Tax office learns that a taxpayer has for years been taxed for more acreage than she owns.  Taxpayer claims that she provided documentation of the correct acreage many years ago.