{"id":15107,"date":"2013-01-24T06:30:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T13:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=15107"},"modified":"2013-01-25T07:58:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T14:58:31","slug":"explaining-idahos-personal-property-tax-with-a-little-help-from-a-boise-candy-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2013\/01\/24\/explaining-idahos-personal-property-tax-with-a-little-help-from-a-boise-candy-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining Idaho’s Personal Property Tax, With A Little Help From A Boise Candy Store"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Molly Messick \/ StateImpact Idaho<\/p>

Debbie and Joe Giordano, of Powell's Sweet Shoppe in Boise<\/p><\/div>\n

Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and many of the Idaho Legislature\u2019s Republican leaders are in agreement: something has to happen on the personal property tax<\/a> this session.\u00a0 And by \u201csomething,\u201d they mean a plan to get rid of it.\u00a0 But there\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 The tax generates $140 million dollars each year for local government.\u00a0 In this story, we start at square one: explaining this thing called the personal property tax.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 Here’s the full transcript:<\/p>\n

MOLLY MESSICK: Say you want to understand Idaho\u2019s business personal property tax.\u00a0 If you\u2019re the studious type, you might look for a technical definition.\u00a0 You\u2019d go to Idaho Statute and you\u2019d find that, \u201cPersonal property means everything that is the subject of ownership and that is not included within the term \u201creal property.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t help much, does it?\u00a0 So let\u2019s try for a practical understanding, and take a field trip somewhere sweet.<\/p>\n

DEBBIE GIORDANO: These Goo Goo Clusters are the first original mixed candy bar…<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Yes, a candy store.\u00a0 Powell\u2019s Sweet Shoppe, in east Boise.<\/p>\n

GIORDANO: We have the old Slo Pokes, the Chick-O-Sticks…<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Debbie Giordano owns it with her husband, Joe.\u00a0 This place is an homage to things spun from sugar. We\u2019re in a section called \u201cMemory Lane,\u201d full of old time sweets. Next door is the \u201cTheater,\u201d stocked with boxes of candy. A screen plays Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on a constant loop.<\/p>\n

MOVIE: Open it, Charlie, let\u2019s see that golden ticket!<\/p>\n

MESSICK: There are props and decorations everywhere.<\/p>\n

GIORDANO: You\u2019ll notice all of the different Candy Land games.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Giordano points to an antique board game, high in a corner, and I remember I\u2019m here on serious business.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Are you paying personal property tax on that?<\/p>\n

GIORDANO: Yeah, actually, we are! Seriously, it\u2019s part of our store d\u00e9cor! We pay personal property tax on that.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Giordano laughs, but she\u2019s not thrilled about the personal property tax bill she and her husband receive each November. It totals a few thousand dollars. Every year, they pay taxes on all of the little things they own in this store that are assets to their business.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t pay it on the candy. That\u2019s inventory, and it\u2019s exempt. But the baskets and the trays and the shelves that hold it?\u00a0 Those are taxed. So are the scales and cash registers, and the big glass display case that holds 24 flavors of gelato. The list goes on and on. Giordano says she was shocked the first time the personal property tax bill arrived in the mail.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Did you understand the definition of personal property?\u00a0 Like, did you even know that this was a category that existed?<\/p>\n

GIORDANO: I had no idea!\u00a0 I mean, it would be like a homeowner buying a kitchen table, and then a bill coming every year to pay a tax on it because you\u2019re using it in your home.\u00a0 I mean, it seems kind of silly.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Giordano’s personal property tax bill came from the county assessor\u2019s office, from this person.<\/p>\n

RACHEL BAIRD: I appraise personal property for taxation.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Rachel Baird, a personal property tax appraiser for Ada County.<\/p>\n

BAIRD: So I have to look at what a business owns and decide how much it\u2019s worth \u2013 what its value is for property tax purposes.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Baird\u2019s job is technical, but it\u2019s also full of fireworks. That\u2019s because there are a lot of Debbie Giordanos out there: new business owners who have never heard of business personal property, and don\u2019t know they\u2019re about to be asked to pay a tax on it. Then they get a letter from the county assessor\u2019s office.\u00a0 That\u2019s when the phone calls start.<\/p>\n

BAIRD: I could almost word-for-word repeat a phone conversation to you.\u00a0 They\u2019re almost always the same. They want to know, \u201cWhat is personal property?\u201d<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Then they ask: \u201cWhy am I supposed to list this?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat am I supposed to list?\u201d<\/p>\n

BAIRD: And then I get the question, and everybody says this: \u201cWait a second!\u00a0 This is for taxes?\u00a0 I have to pay you taxes on all this stuff?\u00a0 I already paid taxes on this.\u00a0 And that\u2019s my fun job to be able to say, \u201cYes you did!\u00a0 That was sales tax.\u00a0 That goes to the state.\u00a0 And now you have to pay property tax that goes to the county.\u201d<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Everything you\u2019ve heard so far sums up some of the main complaints leveled against Idaho\u2019s business personal property tax: It\u2019s a burden for small business owners. It\u2019s hard to administer. Idaho\u2019s most influential business lobby, the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, is leading the charge against the tax. These criticisms could have come straight from their talking points.<\/p>\n

But if you look at the numbers<\/a>, it\u2019s not small businesses that pay most of the personal property tax dollars collected in Idaho. Half of the personal property tax payers in the state pay less than 90 dollars each year.\u00a0 The big payers are utilities, railroads and big businesses, and the taxes they pay support local government all over the state. That\u2019s why some community leaders believe fervently that the state should not go through with a full exemption. Dallas Clinger is one of those local leaders. He lives in Power County, in eastern Idaho. It\u2019s one of the counties that will lose the most if its personal property tax revenue disappears.<\/p>\n

DALLAS CLINGER: The benefit that we will get is nil, and the cost that we will sustain is huge.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a benefit to those small number of big businesses that we have in our state that wield a lot of power in Boise.<\/p>\n

MESSICK: Clinger is afraid lawmakers and the public haven\u2019t thought through the effects of entirely exempting personal property.\u00a0 We\u2019ll hear more from Clinger, and from Power County, tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n

For StateImpact Idaho, I\u2019m Molly Messick.<\/p>\n

Listen to our second story in this two-part series here<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and many of the Idaho Legislature\u2019s Republican leaders are in agreement: something has to happen on the personal property tax this session.\u00a0 And by \u201csomething,\u201d they mean a plan to get rid of it.\u00a0 But there\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 The tax generates $140 million dollars each year for local government.\u00a0 In this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":15119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[210,27,214,102],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}