Full Issue
9 September 2025
Current Issue
Volume 22, Issue 2 (2025)Read More
Featured Content
- Articles9 September 2025
Comparing and contrasting property tax oversight systems - Idaho and The Netherlands
Property tax system administration may occur at national, sub-national, or local levels and includes identification and valuation of taxable property, establishing tax rates, and billing and collection of taxes. Regardless of the initial assignment of responsibilities for these functions, both internal and external oversight are crucial to: • Providing accountability; • Maintaining public trust; • Ensuring compliance with laws; • Producing a transparent property tax system. Although much of this can be accomplished by internal quality control mechanisms, the existence of an oversight body operating independently from the valuation agency or those responsible for the tax components enables such independent corroboration of adherence to laws and good principles and practices. This type of multi-layered system exists in many places and this paper presents two such models – one in the State of Idaho in the United States and the other in The Netherlands - including the evolution of each system and how each system relates to guidance provided by the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO).
Current Articles
Most Popular Articles
- Articles1 June 2019
State and Provincial property tax policies and administrative practices (PTAPP): 2017 findings and report
In response to a need for current information about property tax systems, since 1990 IAAO has conducted surveys of the features of property tax systems in Canada and the United States and published the results. Although the main audience comprises property tax administrators and policy makers in the two countries, readers from other countries may find the results helpful as well. The compilations of survey results published in 1990, 1991, 1992, 2000, 2009, and 2012 were based on a questionnaire sent to each Canadian province and territory and to each U.S. state and the District of Columbia. Similar to the 2012 survey the 2017 survey was limited in scope, representing an update of information and additional exploration of emerging topics. The most important focus of the 2017 survey was state appeals processes and reassessment practices. - Articles1 June 2018
Commercial big-box retail: a guide to market-based valuation
This IAAO position paper provides guidance for the valuation of big-box retail properties. Over the last several years, issues involving these properties and theories about how to value them, such as the dark store theory, have resulted in great debate within both the appraisal and legal communities. Even though this paper concentrates on arriving at the market value of the fee simple interest of these properties, it provides guidance regardless of the specific law of a jurisdiction. - Articles1 June 2017
Understanding intangible assets and real estate: a guide for real property valuation professionals
This guide is intended to assist assessors in understanding and addressing intangible assets in property tax valuation and does not represent a policy position of IAAO. Laws can vary from state to state, but for the majority of jurisdictions, intangible assets are not taxable, at least not as part of the real estate assessment. As a result, assessors must ensure their real estate assessments are free of any intangible value. To help determine whether something is an intangible asset, a four-part test can be applied. This guide highlights many property types that potentially include intangible assets, such as hotels, senior care facilities, and properties with valuable trade names and franchises. - Articles1 December 2004
'Total assets of the business' and lodging facilities: What should be the final chapter
This article discusses the currnet conflict between the opposing methodologies for segregating hotel income attributable to real estate. - Articles31 December 2020
A Gini measure for vertical equity in property assessments
This paper aims to show how the Gini-based measures for inequality, commonly used in the socioeconomic literature, can be applied to property assessments. The index for vertical equity is the ratio of the Gini-based coefficient of assessment to the Gini coefficient of price. It is interpreted as the elasticity of shares of assessments to shares of prices when prices are ordered from the lowest to highest price levels. A second index is based on the difference, rather than the ratio, of the Gini-based coefficients. An important distinction between both indexes and the price-related differential (PRD) and currently used measures is that Gini-based analyses do not use sales ratios (assessment/price ratios), which are basically the behavior of the appraisal errors. Instead, they are based on measures that capture the cumulative distributional behavior of assessments relative to the cumulative distributional behavior of prices across ordered price levels. Both indexes are summary measures that are simple to calculate without regression, although there are regression-equivalent formulations that are used to statistically test for vertical equity. Because Gini-based measurements of inequality have a long history in economics, their introduction to property assessment aligns the measurement and interpretation of vertical equity with its application in other fields. - Articles1 December 2021
The potential of artificial intelligence in property assessment
What is artificial intelligence? Although many definitions are available, in the context of property valuation, IPTI defines artificial intelligence (AI) as machine learning designed to predict an outcome or provide an estimate, e.g., most probable sale price. AI, at least in our use of the term, is based on pattern and image recognition. It has the ability to process large volumes of data and requires intensive computer power of the type available in today’s higher-end PCs and cloud services. For purposes of this white paper, AI does not include standard statistical algorithms — most prominently multiple regression analysis (MRA) — in which the user specifies and calibrates a prediction model. Although users specify the dependent and independent variables, AI models produce no tangible equation. This white paper is therefore distinct from the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) standards on Mass Appraisal of Real Property and Automated Valuation Models, which focus on equation-based applications of the three approaches to value in mass appraisal. The vision of this white paper is to provide a framework or first step toward the production of a standard on the use of AI in property assessment administration. While existing mass appraisal tools can be highly effective and produce excellent performance results, AI offers another viable tool that, if used properly, can efficiently produce equally or, arguably, more accurate valuations for many jurisdictions. Therefore, the authors believe the time has come for serious consideration of AI by the assessment community, and we hope to see the guidance offered in this paper considered and debated as part of a process to have AI adopted on a more formal basis, either as a stand-alone standard or as an addition to an existing standard.