New STJ villa tax

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Priceless! If they all are that well qualified to legislate we have nothing to worry about. He will now SPEARHEAD minor wealth redistribution.

Can't remember the exact dates but late 1990's, early 2000, Commercial property owners led by Gary Byrne took the VI Government to court over being taxed over and above appraised value of their commercial property.

Right now, there's a case pending over the $25 per day time share tax increase brought against the VI Government by a coalition of resorts.

Here's an article about property taxes in STJ from April 2017.
http://www.stjohntradewindsnews.com/property-tax-bill-moves-forward/.

Alana. Thanks for the interesting article about potential property tax legislation.

To me, the fairest way to treat property taxes, whether you are a full time resident or you rent your property part of the year or you own land is to establish the assessed value as the acquisition price when you buy the property. Then the property taxes increase every year by the inflation rate. This ensures the government can keep up with additional costs due to inflation. Whether you live there full time or rent, there is no surprising hikes in the property taxes.

When you sell your property then you pay a tax based on the capital gains (independently of whether you inherited the property or not). If you lose money when you sell, there are no capital gains and no tax. The new buyer's assessed value is the acquisition price and taxes are based on that value (so you know before buying how much taxes are going to be).

All well and fine unless it's the property tax assessors office and not a qualified appraiser is deciding value.
A couple instances come to mind:

1. A bill to allow the above was recently floated, within the last year.
I don't know the outcome as I was in the process of dealing with moving off island and all that entailed.

2. As it stands now, should you sell your property for lower than the assessed value, you must pay the stamp tax on the higher amount.
This screwed up a good many sales that I heard of.

3. I've got friends who own a 1/2 care in West Caret Bay.
Their property tax bill shows an assessment amount that they will never be able to sell their property for.

I was in property tax/assessors office to request a reassessment of a property I owned. My friends had just shown me their tax bill so I was naturally curious as I'd done a realtor comparison on properties in that exact area just recently and nothing had sold even close to their land value assessment.

I asked one of the assessors how they arrive at their values and if they ever use realtor comps for what properties actually sell for and what local banks appraise them at. Short answer, they never use those comps and have their own system of appraisal.

It can take an exceedingly long time for a revaluation.
If the revaluation comes out in your favor, you still must pay the property tax amount charged prior to request and any differences will be credited to next year's property tax bill. That's if they remember, so keep all paperwork and stamp paid bills, cancelled checks with regards to payments.

I looked and could not find a "DICKERSON" business school anywhere.

Any ideas??

That was my experience as well. It links to a Facebook page and says that Marvin Blyden attended, but nothing about the school.

Maybe instead of Dickerson he meant Faber College as a member of Delta Tau Chi

Uber and Lyft would not be competitive at all with the open air safari rides at $1 each but would rather enable getting rides to off-the-beaten-path areas of the islands, provided that the rate structure sufficiently compensated the drivers for their fuel, time and wear and tear on their personal vehicles (drivers of whom are Schedule C filers)

Senator Blyden has cancelled the Town Hall Meeting.

Senator Blyden has cancelled the Town Hall Meeting.

Great news Alana! It was a ridiculas idea anyway.

A lot of people and organizations went to bat on this.

"There was a very powerful representation at a meeting on Saturday involving Blyden. VITAR CEO, VITAR President, VITAR President Elect, and VITAR Legislative Chair, the Presidents of STT, STJ & STX Boards of Realtors were present, the new CEO of Beautiful Places was there, the president of the STT Chamber of Commerce and another director from the STBOR, along with David Bornn. Together, we spent 90 minutes in discussion with Blyden. By the end of it, he was out of juice for defending his proposal. We shot it down at every level. On Monday - David Bornn handed him pages of documentation detailing why his proposal was bad. He cancelled the town meeting immediately."

Thank you Alana and everyone else who worked to explain the pitfalls of this tax proposal. I'm so impressed by the group effort to protect people who invested their savings to buy a home in the USVI.

Don't be fooled...the senators are just regrouping to find another way to extract more tax.

Its all they know.

Is this a guess or a trend? Is the idea of increasing taxes on these properties still on the table?

It pays to be vigilant.

Alana,
What would you tell a potential client who is on the fence about purchasing a property right now? Is this just a buyer beware kind of moment? Is the timing just poor unless you particularly wealthy to be able to afford a multi million dollar property?

Alana,
What would you tell a potential client who is on the fence about purchasing a property right now? Is this just a buyer beware kind of moment? Is the timing just poor unless you particularly wealthy to be able to afford a multi million dollar property?

There is a way to ask individuals questions - private messaging