The TY2024 PTAXSIM update uncovered several issues causing discrepancies between PTAXSIM's tax bill calculation outputs and the tax bill total amounts provided by the Treasurer's office. Some of these issues were unique to the 2024 data update and the transition to the integrated system. These issues are being resolved on the Treasurer's side and they will provide updated data source with tax bill amounts. Once that is complete, we will release an updated version of the 2024 database.
Other issues identified for the tax bill amount discrepancies could potentially be addressed on our end but likely not in the immediate future - regardless we want to document them here for future reference.
Context
For tax year 2024, we found 2,939 PINs that had tax bill calculation amounts that had an absolute percent error greater than 1% when compared to the Treasurer's tax bill total (excluding PINs with an EAV less than 150 - in this case no bill is sent to the property and it is documented as a bill amount of $0). This is larger than number of PINs that fall under this criteria in prior years (for example in 2023, ~90 PINs met these criteria, ~60 in 2022).
It seems that the issues identified in 2024 are new, or just much more prevalent than they were in the past and it's unclear to me at this point why. The Treasurer's office provided a breakdown of why these ~3k PINs had incorrect calculations (or incorrect tax bill totals on the Treasurer side).
Here are categories and descriptions of the reasons outlined for the discrepancies:
Problem PINs
About 1300 of the 3k PINs fall in this category. This is a CCTO data issue which they are working to correct - nothing can be done on our end at this time.
Of the remaining ~1700 PINs it's suspected the error could be caused by following reasons (there are 32 PINs that did not have any of these reasons as flags):
Municipal acquisitions
747 of the 3k PINs are in this category. The CCTO flags properties that were acquired by a government body in the tax year - a non-government buyer/seller may pay some or all of the property taxes for the year of acquisition. This is one where it's unclear to me why this would be a more prevalent issue starting in 2024.
CofEs
628 of the 3k PINs had a CofE applied - most of these are retroactively applied exemptions. I think the argument is that the tax bill total reflects an exemption processed through CofE but that is not present in the exe_ fields? It's not clear to me why this would be the case.
Handling CofEs could be a larger issue with PTAXSIM we should think how/if we want to address: given the PTAXSIM db is typically generated once for each release, it is a single snapshot and will not reflect exemptions obtained via CofE. Could this be a factor in missing vet_dis_exe in past years that is referenced in #43 ? Is this reason to re-run ingest scripts for past years?
Farm PINs
231 of the 3k PINs are classed as farmland. PTAXSIM tax_bill() function has built in exception to not apply the equalizer to an PIN with class 239. It seems that the rule of not equalizing farmland can apply to other farm classes (240, 224) even though the class definition specifies non-equalized land only for class 239. Further examination of farm PINs in 2024 suggests that some 224 PINs are not equalized (only ~30 PINs), while the tax bill total from the Clerk's data shows some class 239s having a tax bill total that reflects equalization. It seems that there are PINs that are split class - so only a portion of AV is equalized.
This seems like a very small issue relative to total PIN count - so I think at this point we keep it as is with the tax_bill() function not applying equalizer to 239 class PINs. At this point I'm not sure how we'd address class 224 / split class with farmland.
The TY2024 PTAXSIM update uncovered several issues causing discrepancies between PTAXSIM's tax bill calculation outputs and the tax bill total amounts provided by the Treasurer's office. Some of these issues were unique to the 2024 data update and the transition to the integrated system. These issues are being resolved on the Treasurer's side and they will provide updated data source with tax bill amounts. Once that is complete, we will release an updated version of the 2024 database.
Other issues identified for the tax bill amount discrepancies could potentially be addressed on our end but likely not in the immediate future - regardless we want to document them here for future reference.
Context
For tax year 2024, we found 2,939 PINs that had tax bill calculation amounts that had an absolute percent error greater than 1% when compared to the Treasurer's tax bill total (excluding PINs with an EAV less than 150 - in this case no bill is sent to the property and it is documented as a bill amount of $0). This is larger than number of PINs that fall under this criteria in prior years (for example in 2023, ~90 PINs met these criteria, ~60 in 2022).
It seems that the issues identified in 2024 are new, or just much more prevalent than they were in the past and it's unclear to me at this point why. The Treasurer's office provided a breakdown of why these ~3k PINs had incorrect calculations (or incorrect tax bill totals on the Treasurer side).
Here are categories and descriptions of the reasons outlined for the discrepancies:
Problem PINs
About 1300 of the 3k PINs fall in this category. This is a CCTO data issue which they are working to correct - nothing can be done on our end at this time.
Of the remaining ~1700 PINs it's suspected the error could be caused by following reasons (there are 32 PINs that did not have any of these reasons as flags):
Municipal acquisitions
747 of the 3k PINs are in this category. The CCTO flags properties that were acquired by a government body in the tax year - a non-government buyer/seller may pay some or all of the property taxes for the year of acquisition. This is one where it's unclear to me why this would be a more prevalent issue starting in 2024.
CofEs
628 of the 3k PINs had a CofE applied - most of these are retroactively applied exemptions. I think the argument is that the tax bill total reflects an exemption processed through CofE but that is not present in the
exe_fields? It's not clear to me why this would be the case.Handling CofEs could be a larger issue with PTAXSIM we should think how/if we want to address: given the PTAXSIM db is typically generated once for each release, it is a single snapshot and will not reflect exemptions obtained via CofE. Could this be a factor in missing
vet_dis_exein past years that is referenced in #43 ? Is this reason to re-run ingest scripts for past years?Farm PINs
231 of the 3k PINs are classed as farmland. PTAXSIM
tax_bill()function has built in exception to not apply the equalizer to an PIN with class 239. It seems that the rule of not equalizing farmland can apply to other farm classes (240, 224) even though the class definition specifies non-equalized land only for class 239. Further examination of farm PINs in 2024 suggests that some 224 PINs are not equalized (only ~30 PINs), while the tax bill total from the Clerk's data shows some class 239s having a tax bill total that reflects equalization. It seems that there are PINs that are split class - so only a portion of AV is equalized.This seems like a very small issue relative to total PIN count - so I think at this point we keep it as is with the
tax_bill()function not applying equalizer to 239 class PINs. At this point I'm not sure how we'd address class 224 / split class with farmland.