Bernalillo County Tax Assessor, Karen Montoya Discusses Tax Lightning

Published on May 05, 2010

In 1998 voters were asked to “amend Article 8 (relating to taxation), Section 1, of the state Constitution to authorize the Legislature to limit increases in valuation of residential property for property tax purposes.” Short and sweet, it passed overwhelmingly. The change applied only to residential values, not commercial or vacant land which is considered non-residential.
Based on that voter sanction, the 2000 Legislature passed HB 366 which said the value of property shall not exceed 103 percent of the value in the previous tax year. This was a cap on value, not taxes.
But, there were exclusions to the cap (which was not reported to the voters in the amendment) that included new construction and changes in ownership. These exceptions have created the phenomena known as tax lightning, where an ever increasing number of property owners are paying steep property taxes even though they receive the same basic services as their lower paying neighbors.
Sen. Mark Boitano, GAAR member since 1992