Welcome to your Thurston County Assessor's website
We are making an effort to update this site with current issues as they emerge and to provide appropriate links for easy access to greater detail.
All properties in Thurston County are inspected every 6 years. This year our office inspected over 1,500 commercial and 16,000 residential properties in order to verify and update condition and quality and to identify new structures and improvements. A great deal of care and analysis has been invested to assure that each property is fairly and equitably valued. Still, we recognize that in some instance a reexamination of a given property value is in order.
Two remedies’ exist for property owners who have a concern about the accuracy of their assessed values. The first is to contact our office to review your concern with our skilled staff during the appeal period. My entire staff is motivated to have productive dialogue aimed at rapidly resolving valid concerns about your property value within the newly extended 60-day appeal period. If your concern cannot be resolved prior to the appeal deadline of
We have made some significant changes since the first of the year aimed at improving transparency, improving customer service and to provide a longer more productive period to achieve immediate resolution of taxpayer concerns.
These changes include:
- Making Cost Valuation Reports and property characteristics available on this website.
- Posting a complete copy of our characteristics and conditions manual for reference.(22MB)
- Extending the appeal period from 30 – 60 days.
- Restoring our permanent office hours to 8:00am to 5:00pm (including the lunch hour) Monday through Friday.
- Adding phone lines and realigning staff to assure calls are routed to the proper professional for prompt action.
- Revised the revaluation card for greater clarity and comparison with values in prior years.
By next June (when revaluation notices will go out next year), we intend to add photographs for all properties to our website. Our goal is to continually improve taxpayers’ ability to research and verify their properties assessed value from home.
Tax Statement Notification (Posted Feb 2012)
To our valued customers:
Tax statements should reach taxpayers this year, on about February 13th. Even though the value of most properties continued to decline in 2011, for many a combination of factors will produce an increase in your tax liability.
Particularly in these difficult times, it is understandable that many taxpayers have questions as they review their tax statements. We in the Assessor’s office continue to work collaboratively with your County Treasurer, Shawn Myers and her staff in order to provide taxpayers improved access to meaningful information about how each taxpayers taxes have been calculated. With this in mind, we have made some additional changes to both web sites and added what we hope will be helpful content.
It is important to remember that questions about how your taxes were calculated, or regarding how to pay your taxes should be directed to the Treasurer’s Office. Your Treasurer, Shawn Myers provides great information on the Treasurer web site or her customer service staff can be reached by phone at (360) 786-5550.
Questions about your assessed value or eligibility in tax exemption programs should be directed to the Assessor’s Office. Our customer service staff is available from 8AM to 5PM five days a week in person or by phone at (360) 867-2200.
First, however, my hope is that you will review some or all of the following information:
- To review our 2012 Levies and Property Tax Fact Sheet including detailed answers to frequently asked questions please: click here
- To access your specific property taxes for 2012: click here
- To view the Property Tax Flow Chart: click here
- For greater detail about how your property taxes are determined: click here
- To see a breakdown of property taxes by taxing district: click here
It is my sincere hope that this brief explanation and the linked to reference tools will resolve any questions you may have upon receipt of this year’s tax statement. Should this not be the case, the staffs of both the Treasurer’s office and my office look forward to serving you.
Sincerely,
Steven J. Drew
Thurston County Assessor
