OCA Audit Reports

Home | Performance | Services | Reports | Audit & Finance Committee | Employment | Outreach | Investigations | Awards | Links & Resources

Issued: July 2006

SUMMARY

This report presents the results of our follow-up work on the Property Tax: Annexations audit issued in 2003. The purpose of this follow-up work was to verify whether City planning staff has completed analysis of properties along Lake Austin that are currently exempt from paying City property tax to determine whether to maintain the exemption.

We found that City planning staff has made important progress related to our original recommendation with the scheduled annexation of an area called the “Peninsula” and the decision to begin to provide services and collect taxes from those properties adjacent to the Peninsula that are currently exempt from taxation. Additionally, in our review of appraisal district records for properties in the Lake Austin area, we found several anomalies, including 34 properties omitted from the City property tax roll and one property erroneously paying property tax to the City. Given the errors found in the appraisal district records, the City should collaborate with the appraisal district to ensure that all properties within Austin’s city limits are correctly attributed to Austin. While the City does not have responsibility for maintaining the appraisal district records, it is in the City’s best interest to ensure that all properties within the city limits are paying property tax to the City of Austin.

We have issued three recommendations that address the need for the City to collaborate with the appraisal district to correct the present problems and to ensure that all properties are correctly added to the City tax roll by the appraisal district in the future. Management concurs with these recommendations.

Download the entire text of our Property Tax: Annexations Follow-Up audit report (Size: 1.35 MB) in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files. Or request a hard copy of this audit report, No. AU05202, by submitting this audit report request form.

The City Of Austin is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Reasonable modifications and equal access to communications will be provided upon request. Please call (512) 974-2805 or Relay Texas #711.