If you bought a car in 2021, Fayette County may owe you a tax refund. What to know
As the price of used and new cars has skyrocketed in recent years, in part due to the pandemic and supply chain issues, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order aiming to provide vehicle property tax relief.
Executive Order 2022-096, signed Feb. 16, freezes vehicle property tax bills so residents pay the same amount in 2022 and 2023 that they would’ve paid in 2021.
Those who haven’t yet renewed their vehicle registration may see an already adjusted value on their bill. If you’ve already paid for your 2022 registration, you may be entitled to a refund.
The Herald-Leader spoke with Fayette County Property Valuation Administrator David O’Neill about the refund process. Here’s what to know.
Who’s entitled to a refund in Fayette County?
The Fayette County Clerk’s office and PVA office processed thousands of refunds automatically, but officials have to manually handle others.
“The ones that we’re still looking through now are mostly the ones where the car was purchased in calendar year 2021 and they had not paid the taxes by the time the executive order was signed. And we’re manually having to go through and process those,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill estimated refunds were not automatically processed for about 25,000 vehicles in Fayette County. About 2,000 to 2,500 county residents have already called the PVA office requesting a refund, O’Neill said.
While people can call and expedite the process, Fayette County PVA officials will issue refunds to those who have overpaid regardless of whether they place a request, O’Neill said.
Since the Fayette County PVA needs to manually handle about 25,000 refunds, it may take “a few weeks” to get through them all, O’Neill continued.
“We are doing what we can to help people get their money back because it’s the right thing to do,” O’Neill said. “The Department of Revenue instructions were to process these as they were requested, and obviously many people do not know to ask, and so we’re working as hard as we can to get those out without them having to ask.”
Fayette County resident Byron Duvall told the Herald-Leader he saved almost $50 on his tax bill after he called O’Neill’s office to get his vehicle’s value adjusted.
“I just noticed when we got our registration card in the mail it had a taxable value that was more than what I paid for the vehicle in March of 2021,” Duvall said.
Duvall said his vehicle was overvalued by just over 10%, and the process to correct it was relatively simple and straightforward. It took about five minutes on the phone for Duvall to give the PVA office the required information.
For other callers, wait times will likely vary.
Refunds must be processed within two years of the date a resident paid their taxes, O’Neill said, but the office plans to finish processing refunds well ahead of that deadline.
If you want to get your refund processed as soon as possible, you can call 859-246-2722 to speak with a Fayette County property value assessor.
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