The Property Tax Assessment Racket

The following is a flashback From the NDTA Archives - April 11th, 2011

When it comes to politics, it is important to keep an eye out for patterns.

After receiving private contact from people in both Valley City and Hazen about their property values being hiked up, and also referring to a company called "Vanguard", we started to do some digging. (The word from both of these sources was that their values were increased almost exactly $100,000.)

It turns out that there is a company call Vanguard Appraisals Inc. based out of Cedar Rapids Iowa which makes its money by going around to local governments and doing "mass appraisals of property"; ostensibly to increase local property tax revenue. (note: this is not the mutual fund company)

A quick Google search shows that this firm is connected to one of the bigger property tax stories in North Dakota over the last couple years.

In May of 2009, commercial property valu…