PTD Met with Representatives in June
The Comptroller’s Property Tax Division (PTD) met with representatives of utility properties to establish better communications among property tax professionals involved in appraising utility property for property tax purposes.
With the deregulation of utility companies, the appraisal of utility properties has increased in complexity and produced issues that require open discussion to reach an appraisal consensus. PTD Manager Buddy Breivogel explained that the division would communicate public policy issues to the Comptroller.
Attending the June 13 meeting of the “Utility Properties Group” were representatives of 17 utility companies, five appraisal firms, and PTD staff. PTD initiated an e-mail group to begin discussions. The Utilities Group also will investigate other means of communications that would include using some of the following methods:
- Conference calls by subgroups within the Utilities Group,
- Discussion groups via the internet or e-mail,
- Posting minutes from subgroup meetings,
- Net meetings,
- Video conferencing, and
- Multiple meetings in place of one annual meeting.
The Utilities Group identified some issues open for discussion in utilities’ appraisal. They included:
- Intangible personal property value -- how to identify and address;
- Enterprise value vs. market value;
- Other states’ perspective on treatment of intangibles;
- Equity between company values;
- Consistency of methodology;
- Allocation – age, cost, mile methodology;
- Same companies in the Property Value Study (PVS) each year;
- Allocation of PTD resources for the PVS;
- Some companies never in the PVS;
- Using sampling to select companies for the PVS;
- Allocation of the Texas portion of companies in PVS;
- Replacement cost new studies;
- Inclusion and consideration of Replacement Cost New Less Depreciation (RCNLD);
- Replacement of income approach with cost approach;
- Any need for adopted standards;
- Any standards that apply to utility property appraisal;
- Any requirement for PTD to use Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) Standard 6;
- Consideration of the three approaches to value and individual property characteristics;
- Using a methods review vs. appraisals in the PVS; and
- Exclusion by PTD of categories comprising less than five percent of total school value – application of this exclusion to the utility category.
More about the Utilities Group and their discussions will appear in future issues of STATEMENT.