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Committee OKs bill letting counties collect property taxes earlier in the year
Summary
House Bill 1345, passed by the Senate Revenue & Tax Committee, allows counties to permissively open tax books and collect property taxes before the statutory first-business-day-in-March in order to forward funds earlier to local municipalities and schools; Garland County testified it collected about $2.5 million in February under early mailing practices.
The Senate Revenue & Tax Committee voted to approve House Bill 1345, which would permit counties to collect property taxes earlier than the current statutory opening (first business day in March).
Representative Keith Brooks, who sponsored the measure, said the bill is permissive: it "simply allows counties to collect taxes prior to" the current open-books period and codifies practices already used by some counties so municipalities and school districts can receive funds earlier. "Some of the counties are already doing this," Brooks said, and the bill gives legal permission for counties that choose to do so.
Senator Hickey asked whether the statute imposes any absolute earliest opening date and raised a concern about the potential for taxpayers to shift deductions across tax years. Representative Brooks and witnesses explained that in practice an assessor must complete the prior year's roll and that opening before Jan. 1 would be unlikely because assessors must finalize values and balances.
Rebecca Dodd Talbert, Garland County tax collector, testified about her county's long-standing practice of mailing bills around Presidents' Day and said the county collected "about 2 and a half million dollars" in February by doing so. She told the committee the bill only "says you can" open books earlier and that modern technology makes earlier mailing feasible.
Senator Johnson moved to do pass the bill and Senator Hickey seconded. The committee recorded a voice vote with no recorded opposition and the chair announced HB 13 45 had passed.
The transcript records no roll-call tally and no opponents speaking during committee consideration. Questions remained in the discussion about the practical limits set by assessors' timelines and the potential tax-year deduction consequences for some taxpayers; the witnesses advised that those constraints make very early openings unlikely.
