Posted on 09/03/2005 7:13:43 PM PDT by freespirited
While the average New Orleans homeowner enjoys a low property tax assessment, a select group of locals gets an even larger break: the people who donate to the assessors' campaigns.
Campaign donors' properties are more than twice as likely as those of nondonors to be valued by assessors at less than their most recent sales price.
Slightly more than half of the donor-owned properties examined by the newspaper were assessed for less than their owners paid for them. By comparison, one in five homes overall is assessed for less than its most recent sales price.
For example, former Saints quarterback Archie Manning has contributed $1,250 to the campaign of 4th District Assessor Betty Jefferson since 1998 and also gave to her predecessor, Ronnie Burke.... Manning has lived for 22 years in a galleried Greek Revival mansion in the Garden District ... Manning paid $450,000 for the home in 1982, but 16 years later, Burke valued it at $285,000 -- saving Manning almost $3,000 a year in taxes. Jefferson still values it at 20% less than he paid for it.
Take, for instance, 231 Royal St., a building purchased in 2001 for $2.5 million by a company called 231 LLC ... The firm ... donated a total of $1,000 to Mauberret's campaign the following year. Three years after the sale, Mauberret still values the property at $500,000, saving its owners $34,258 per year..
The most generous donors to 7th District Assessor Henry Heaton's war chest -- the Hooper family -- also happen to own some of the most sharply underassessed properties in the district.
The Hoopers' largest holding, the Carrollton Parc apartment complex, is valued by Heaton at $4.7 million, $1.8 million less than they paid for it two years ago. That break alone is worth more than $30,000 per year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
The tax assessor is an elected position? At least the political donations pay off.
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