77-1327. Legislative intent; Property Tax Administrator; sales file; studies; powers and duties.

(1) It is the intent of the Legislature that accurate and comprehensive information be developed by the Property Tax Administrator and made accessible to the taxing officials and property owners in order to ensure the uniformity and proportionality of the assessments of real property valuations in the state in accordance with law and to provide the statistical and narrative reports pursuant to section 77-5027.

(2) All transactions of real property for which the statement required in section 76-214 is filed shall be available for development of a sales file by the Property Tax Administrator. All transactions with stated consideration of more than one hundred dollars or upon which more than two dollars and twenty-five cents in documentary stamp taxes are paid shall be considered sales. All sales shall be deemed to be arm's length transactions unless determined to be otherwise under professionally accepted mass appraisal techniques. The Department of Revenue shall not overturn a determination made by a county assessor regarding the qualification of a sale unless the department reviews the sale and determines through the review that the determination made by the county assessor is incorrect.

(3) The Property Tax Administrator annually shall make and issue comprehensive assessment ratio studies of the average level of assessment, the degree of assessment uniformity, and the overall compliance with assessment requirements for each major class of real property subject to the property tax in each county. The comprehensive assessment ratio studies shall be developed in compliance with professionally accepted mass appraisal techniques and shall employ such statistical analysis as deemed appropriate by the Property Tax Administrator, including measures of central tendency and dispersion. The comprehensive assessment ratio studies shall be based upon the sales file as developed in subsection (2) of this section and shall be used by the Property Tax Administrator for the analysis of the level of value and quality of assessment for purposes of section 77-5027 and by the Property Tax Administrator in establishing the adjusted valuations required by section 79-1016. Such studies may also be used by assessing officials in establishing assessed valuations.

(4) For purposes of determining the level of value of agricultural and horticultural land subject to special valuation under sections 77-1343 to 77-1347.01, the Property Tax Administrator shall annually make and issue a comprehensive study developed in compliance with professionally accepted mass appraisal techniques to establish the level of value if in his or her opinion the level of value cannot be developed through the use of the comprehensive assessment ratio studies developed in subsection (3) of this section.

(5) County assessors and other taxing officials shall electronically report data on the assessed valuation and other features of the property assessment process for such periods and in such form and content as the Property Tax Administrator shall deem appropriate. The Property Tax Administrator shall so construct and maintain the system used to collect and analyze the data to enable him or her to make intracounty comparisons of assessed valuation, including school districts and other political subdivisions, as well as intercounty comparisons of assessed valuation, including school districts and other political subdivisions. The Property Tax Administrator shall include analysis of real property sales pursuant to land contracts and similar transfers at the time of execution of the contract or similar transfer.

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Annotations

Section 77-5027(3) does not require the Property Tax Administrator to set out every property sale that the Department of Revenue's assessment division has included in its statistical analyses under subsection (3) of this section. County of Webster v. Nebraska Tax Equal. & Rev. Comm., 296 Neb. 751, 896 N.W.2d 887 (2017).

The Property Tax Administrator's required reports under subsection (3) of this section are competent evidence to support an equalization order under section 77-5026 without including the sales file information for each real property transaction. Accordingly, in a show cause hearing under section 77-5026, a county has the burden to demonstrate that the Tax Equalization and Review Commission should not rely on the reports. County of Webster v. Nebraska Tax Equal. & Rev. Comm., 296 Neb. 751, 896 N.W.2d 887 (2017).

The real property transactions eligible for inclusion in the sales file are those transactions for which the statement required by section 76-214 is filed. For those transactions initially eligible for inclusion in the sales file, the price to be included in the sales file is the total consideration paid as listed on the statement described in subsection (1) of section 76-214. Section 77-1371 does not pertain to a compilation of a sales file under subsection (2) of this section. Shaul v. Lang, 263 Neb. 499, 640 N.W.2d 668 (2002).