Property taxes increasing across Utah; Kane residents express concern over taxable value spikes

Following the recent property value assessment season, and in keeping with rising home values across Utah and in Kane County specifically, home and property owners in Kane County are seeing increases in property taxes that have them concerned. According to a recent legislative au­dit, as reported on by KSL and Deseret News, Utah has experienced a “perfect storm” of tax issues that lead to the state’s higher-than-average tax rates.

“More people are moving to Utah” is a refrain so com­mon it has become cliché for many in the Kane County area, and that increase in demand comes with an increase in price and home values - and the increase in property tax that comes with it. Additionally, the increasing rates of proper­ties being converted into short-term rentals is reduc­ing the supply of livable housing in the area, driving costs up further. According to Kane County Assessor Ryan Maddux, “Counties like Salt Lake and Utah County have a tiny percent­age of short-term rentals; most of the people who own a home, live in that home. In Kane County, we have a 51 plus percent of short-term rentals and second­ary residences, the rate at which people own property they don’t live in isn’t even comparable.” While this factor can drive property values up, it also means fewer homeowners on the primary residence exemp­tion, which can mitigate the tax burden on neighbors.

Further exacerbating the issue, Utah’s legislature paused the basic tax levy following COVID - meaning while budgets increased for public education, property taxes were no longer fixed to a certain amount of revenue, but rather to their assessed value, through 2023. Now that legislative budgets have adjusted to the increased revenue, taxes are slow to come back down and deprive budgets for public education, roads and public works of funds they have already spent. During such phases, infla­tion can more keenly affect property tax values, as they are permitted to adjust for rising costs instead of re­maining fixed to a certain revenue stream.

While Utah’s tax rates have increased consistently over the last few years, the state’s taxes remain very low relative to the rest of the U.S., placed at the seventh lowest property taxes and fourteenth lowest income tax by a 2024 TurboTax article. This is relatively high among other rural con­servative states, reflecting Utah’s increasing property values, economic drivers and spreading urban de­velopment area.

According to Maddux, Kane County has some consistently proven means of reducing the tax bur­den on its residents, most significantly the Primary Residence Tax Exemption, which can reduce the prop­erty taxes on homeowners while leaving the revenue streams from short term rentals intact. Per Maddux, “We do our best to make sure our citizens are only paying their fair share in taxes and no more. Kane County has done its best to stretch its dollars so we don’t need dramatic tax hikes to keep operating - if anyone ever has any ques­tions or concerns, please come to me and we can talk about it. If there’s a problem, we can find it and we will fix it, we have the means. That’s what my of­fice is for.”

An upcoming issue of the Southern Utah News will feature advice from the Kane County Assessor’s Office on how to access tax help such as the Pri­mary Residence Exemption and other mitigation, and will feature more detailed tax information for Kane County and Kanab City, and the legislative status of tax relief efforts in these bodies.