Latest / Saluda County Unplugged / Understanding Your Tax Bill
Transcript
- Josh Morton: When your tax bill arrives, where do your eyes go first? Probably straight to the amount due. Understandable. Mine too. But there's a whole lot of information behind that number. And a few words most of us don't use over breakfast. Millage anybody? Today we're visiting with Saluda County Auditor Elena Dorsey. We'll find out what her office does, then walk through how to read a tax bill. One piece at a time, right here on Saluda County Unplugged. Welcome back to Saluda County Unplugged, where we shine a light on Saluda County government. I'm Rachel. And I'm Josh. Today we're talking about something that can raise a lot of questions around the kitchen table, a tax bill. You look at the total, then you start looking at all the other numbers, and pretty soon you're wondering what they mean and who you're supposed to call. But before we get into the bill itself, we're going to spend a few minutes getting to know the person and the office behind part of that process. We're so glad to have Saluda County Auditor Elena Dorsey with us. Elena, thanks for joining us. Thank you guys for having me. So we'll start with your work as the auditor. Then have you got us through the tax bill. For anyone listening at home, you're welcome to follow along with your own tax bill, but you don't need one in front of you. We'll describe what we're looking at as we go, and we've also posted a sample bill on our Facebook page so that you can follow along. So Elena, for somebody who's never had a real reason to visit your office, how would you explain what the county auditor does? so we determine and maintain the assessed values of your property. and what that means is we collect data from a couple of different resources, but the main one that we use is the Department of Revenue. We're partnered with a site called Price Digest. They will give us an appraisal and then we will come up with an assessed value that is multiplied by a few other factors. So you'll have your millage. that's determined by the district that you're in. There's seven districts in Saluda County. So there's a lot that goes into that number. And and speaking of data, I know that your office recently put out something to try and get some better data on I think it was some of our mobile homes in the county. Yeah. So the process for your cars is gonna be we get the information from Department of Motor Vehicles. So if they don't have, say, the correct model number on a camper, then we're not gonna have it. and to be able to accurately tax that we would need it. A lot of our records have unknown. Right. so we're trying to do away with a lot of that on the campers, boats, and motors. Right. And and for some people that may actually end up saving them money. you know, for some it may Increase, but for some it may decrease. You never know. Yes. Well, by law, I can't go up on them. So what we're doing is if it would cause an increase, I'm dropping it five percent per sale off. but if it will decrease, we're definitely taking it down. We want to rectify those records. Elena, let's circle back a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of how you came into the position of Saluda County Auditor? Sure. So I was born and raised here. I'm 28 years old, married with a lot of kids. I started out in the auditor's office as the clerk. I moved up to the assistant position, and I got to talking a little bit. with Mim. I knew that he was ready to retire soon. So he started training me. I think he trained me for maybe like a year and a half. but I ended up really liking the job and realizing that what I do in there directly affects the county and if it's done correctly it could generate money for the county. and my babies are gonna grow up here so I don't know, I just kinda got in there and fell in love with it. so Elena, why don't you tell us a little bit about the staff members in your office? So I have two other ladies working in the office with me. My assistant auditor is gonna be Perrin Bryan. She has been there since last December. And then we have Miss Lydia Carolina de Villa. She's gonna be my clerk. They're great assets to me. I work beautifully with them. They work beautifully together. and I'm very blessed to have them. Absolutely. And as another department head in the county, I can tell you having a good staff makes a huge difference in in the day-to-day operations. So I'm so glad you have a very good staff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, Rachel being one of them. So you know. Well, I I said I didn't say my whole staff was great. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kidding, Rachel. You do a good job. So, Elena, as we're talking about the auditor's office, I know you fit into really the the larger picture of the the tax side of county government. you have the assessor's office, the auditor's office, the treasurer's office. For an average person that doesn't do this on a day-to-day basis, how do they know which office they need to talk to? Right. So it really depends on the situation. So vehicles, boats, motors, campers, documented vessels, airplanes, business personal tax, that's gonna be the auditor's office. When you get into real estate, home, land, wanna classify your land as AG, any land classification. You're gonna be with the assessor's office and then the treasurer's office would really just be for payments. and you know, you mentioned vehicles a couple of times already. I know one of the things you deal with a lot is high mileage appeals. Right. And can you talk a little bit about that? What what qualifies a vehicle for high mileage? Sure. So it's fifteen thousand milesperyear from the manufactured date of the vehicle. you'll come in, report your current mileage to us. We will check our chart. If you qualify, we will adjust your bill. If not, we'll send you next door to the treasurer for payment. so what is one of the other things that somebody comes to your office for that maybe starts somewhere else? So we get a lot of requests for address changes. We can change the address on a notice that you receive. It just does not solve the problem for the next year when it's up for renewal. So if it's a boat and motor, that would need to be corrected with DNR. your cars are gonna be the DMV. Real estate would be the assessor's office. And then if you have a special mailing address, that would be the DMV. And a lot of people do have special mailing addresses and don't realize it. And we cannot change those. So what so what is a special mailing address? That's the first time I've heard that term. That would be if I live in Saluda, but I want all of my mail to go to Anderson. then I would go to the DMV and request a special mailing address. So all of my mail would be forwarded there. So Elena, what's one of the biggest misconceptions in your opinion about tax bills? So I think that people see the amount due and they think that that is definite. And probably 90% of the time it is, but you do have a little leeway when it comes to your taxes. So we do offer high mileage. if it's, land related and you qualify, we could do we could look into a homestead. That is age based, disability based, and then also appraisals. So if you disagree, everyone has the right to appeal. And what that is, is you will take a form from our office to a licensed dealer. They will look over your property. You can bring it back to me. And I do try to work with people on that. so I would definitely say that. if you feel you're being taxed unfairly, it's definitely worth the time to have that done. Awesome. I think it's really good that that is an option for people. And and I don't think that's something that most people know. so if you're listening to this week's podcast, you're ahead of the game. All right. So we've, talked about what the Office does. We've talked about some of the the folks that work in the office. We we've talked about the process and some of the things like appeals and and appraisals and those types of things. But now I I think let's get down to the piece of paper that's probably gonna show up in your mailbox in the next few weeks and and be sitting on your kitchen table, and that's the tax bill. So Alina, let's walk through a sample real estate tax bill together. As we go, we can name each section so listeners can follow along, even if they don't have a copy. So can you start us off with what we're looking at and which tax year it covers? Yes. So real estate is actually billed in arrears. Whereas vehicles you pay forward. Boats and motors, you pay forward. Real estate, you're paying in arrears. So it goes by who owned the property December 1st of 2025. That is who will get the tax bill this fall. and whenever you're looking at your bill in the top right hand corner there's gonna be a receipt number. It is on the bill several times throughout whenever you're calling in to ask us questions, that is gonna be the most helpful thing. If you have that, that would be phenomenal. Of course, we can pull by the name and map number. A lot of people don't have their map number, which is all accessible to you online. But the receipt number is what we're gonna be looking for. And and speaking of online, you know, one thing I think a lot of people don't realize is you can actually go on the Saluda County website and pull all of your tax bills previous Current all of them. So whenever you're looking at it, obviously you'll have your receipt number right next to that is gonna be the district. there are seven districts in Saluda County. you'll have your general one, two, and three, and then it'll break down into your towns. So one S, two R S, two and three B. That district is going to reflect your levy. And that means that the county is getting a portion of that money, and so is the town. If you look below the county tax dollar distribution chart, right below that receipt number and district column, you're gonna see what the levy amounts are. For like county operating, county bonds, school operating, school bonds, and then that municipal tax would be like a town. So that would reflect there if it was on the sample bill. And then you'll see the exact tax dollars down to the penny of what that resulted in off to the side. Right. So on here you have levy mills. So like county operations is point one seven six one zero. So is that how many mills the county has? for that district or how how what does that number mean? So that's just the county operation mill. So it's actually the one seventy six ten, which that's not what it is this yearbut there's a chart that I can send to you to put alongside the sample bill. that shows how everything is broken down. So the bond for Piedmont Tech, the two school bonds, county operating, the towns operating, it's just an operational millage same with the schools, kind of what they're needing to generate. Okay, so then if you're looking the left-hand side of that chart we were just discussing, you'll see the name, address. and then below that is going to be kind of how everything was assessed and broken down. So you'll see that property evaluation, that's the assessment that we use. The tax levy will be to the side of it. The exact property tax from that assessment and tax levy will be to the side of that. And then if you go down, it'll have a description of the property. So you'll have your acres, your buildings, the total appraisal, all that good stuff down here. But One thing I want to emphasize is that ratio amount. So if you're looking at your bill and it has a four percent ratio amount, that is going to mean that you're a legal resident of Saluda County. If you see a six, that means that that property is being assessed as a secondary property I also want to make it clear that that is not definite. Like if you get your bill and you know that that's your legal residency is possible, you just haven't signed up for legal residency. So that would be something that you would need to follow up with the assessor's office on. And that makes a big difference. That it does. Four versus six percent. It's more than two percent. Yeah, it does. One other thing feeding off of the four percent is that if you have a four percent bill, you do not pay the school operating. Everyone pays school bonds, but the legal residents do not pay school operating. And that is a huge thing because you know, we always hear people say, Well, why do I have to pay the school? Because I don't have kids in school. And the reality is if you have legal residence, you're not paying. The school. Right. So also the map number is how we identify your property. The assessor's office assigns the map numbers. Whenever you're calling in, it would be very helpful to my office if you had the receipt number or map number. As you can imagine, some people will have 50 map numbers in their name. So when we're going through our system and trying to pull up your records, we at least need the address and the map number of what you're wanting to inquire about. So Elena, I have another question. What is the most common misunderstanding that people make when they compare, say, their bill to their neighbor's bill? Okay. So we do have a lot of I guess people that fall on one side of a county line and and or district and they're comparing with somebody on the other side. And I know it seems crazy, but you can look across and they can be in a completely different district than you. I don't make the rules. I do try to follow them though. so the first thing that I look at with a comparison, if I can get the other parties information, is the districts, because obviously each district has its own levy. the next thing would be trucks and the debate between light and heavy trucks. So We do not this decide the gross weight of vehicles. That is something that the Department of Revenue sets and then they give us assessment books. We look at the gross weight and that tells us if we need to tax you as light or heavy. So we do have a lot of people that compare their trucks. Sometimes it's a difference in weight and sometimes it's just a difference in all the bells and whistles. So if you have just a basic Ford F one fifty and your neighbor has a souped up. Ford F-150. They're not going to have the same tax amount. When we're looking at vehicles, some of them are very cut and dry and easy. There's one configuration. Some of them has 22 configurations. Yeah. and again, we are just making very educated guesses most of the time because the property is not right in front of us. So we only know what we know. It is very possible that your Door jam on your truck is less than a gross weight of eleven thousand pounds. If so, we would tax you at six percent. But again, we only have the information that we have to go off of. So I think the biggest thing that I have wanted to do is kind of break that barrier down and just pick up the phone and call if there's an issue. Like we want to look into it more. So that happens a lot with comparisons. It's just a difference of information, miscommunication. But it does happen a lot and I would say ninety percent of the time there's a very valid explanation as to why. Yeah, I'm really glad you touched on that. That was an incredible explanation and hopefully that'll help some of our listeners out. Okay, so one thing with the high mileage that I would like to talk about is if your vehicle is 15 years or older, we would not do high mileage on it. The reason being is that it is already the lowest assessed value that it can go. If you get a white bill, it's gonna be in bold red letters on the bill. but a lot of the times we have people come in and say, Hey, this bill is 19. 62 last year, this year is sixty sixty-two. That is a forty dollar DMV tag fee and you will have that every other year. But your county tax is still very well nineteen sixty-two. That is the lowest that it's gonna go. We would not do a high mileage on that. and that DMV forty dollars fee, that that is something that you have no control over. Saluta County does not set that. Saluta County doesn't get that money. Yes, but if you I think I have seen a fee, a DMV fee like as high as two hundred dollars. If you ever get a bill like that and you're like, I need to check into this, you're always welcome to come to the treasurer's office and pay your county tax portion and then head over to the highway department. That way you're not late. but you didn't pay that without an explanation because we don't always have the explanation for their fees. Elena, thank you so much for spending time with us today to help us work through something that can feel really confusing. It's been really helpful to be able to slow down, ask the basic questions, and understand what we're looking at. Well, thank you guys for having me. I have really enjoyed talking with y'all, and I always welcome and encourage the questions. And for everybody listening, give yourself a few minutes to look over your tax bill before you set it aside. Check which property and tax year it covers. Look through the details that lead to the total, find the amount due and the dates that go along with it. And if something doesn't make sense, write down your question and reach out to The auditor's office or if it's a real estate thing, the assessor's office. But you don't have to know all of the terminology. You don't have to understand all of it to ask a good question. We have great county employees who are always there and willing to help you with whatever you need. So the question of can you help me understand this line? That's a perfectly fine place to start the conversation. That's what we hope these conversations can do. Make county government a little easier to understand and help you know where to turn. Elena, thanks again for joining us and thank all of you for listening. Have questions or an idea for an upcoming episode? Email us at publicinfo at salutacounty.sc.gov. And remember, there's no crying in baseball, but tax bills weren't in that movie. We'll see you next time on Saluda County Unplugged.