Pam Carley

Hello, my name is Pamela Carley. I am pleased to report that I just wrapped up my 26th tax season with Property Valuation Services (PVS). I began working with PVS shortly after the doors opened. I have held multiple positions within the organization and have gained valuable experience from each job. As such, I am now teaching and spreading my knowledge to my current team. Our team of employees works hard throughout the year to benefit our clients and achieve the best possible result! 

My department currently manages the review and filing of all business personal property tax returns at PVS. This is a large task as we filed more than 15,000 returns in 34 states dealing with more than 1,600 individual taxing jurisdictions this 2024 tax year. This year, our department was structured differently where Chip Saam and I were Senior co-directors. He specialized on the technical side and I with the administrative side, as well as directing our PT Support Team. The Personal Property department consists of Chip, four managers, four team leads, 26 consultants and myself. To process such a large volume of tax returns, PVS has developed a valuable proprietary tracking system titled (PVSpts). This system is a critical tool for our internal function and provides valuable data access to our clients through web access. This system is continually updated to maximize process efficiency. 

Our team has been extremely efficient since implementing new procedures after COVID-19. We have continued to maintain the integrity of our filings and allow all of our consultants, if they choose, to work from home. Our consultants enjoy this benefit, as do our managers. We believe everyone is more productive and does great in their own environment. Moreover, we had already allowed our employees to utilize remote access before the pandemic, so this change was quite painless. Additionally, we were able to make the necessary modifications in PVSpts to account for the needed changes, and all returns have been filed and reviewed without incident.  

Our personal property tax filing season is quickly coming to a close for the 2024 year. Consequently, we have transitioned to tracking all proposed assessed values to ensure the proposed assessments reflect the values we requested on our recently filed tax returns. As this process is quite intricate and extremely time-sensitive, PVS continues to use our dedicated team, the Property Tax Support Group (PTSG), which is dedicated solely to securing data on these valuations. With PTSG’s support in gathering this data, my team has been able to operate more efficiently by focusing on valuation work. 

In a perfect world, all issued valuations would reflect our requested valuations. However, in practice, many issued valuations must be negotiated by our office to move toward our requested assessment. This negotiation process takes several months as I assist my team in reviewing each proposed assessment and potential appeal. Our office contacts each jurisdiction to obtain detailed working papers that reflect the assessor’s valuation method. We analyze each account in detail to the individual asset to identify deviations. Each assessor is contacted to discuss these differences, and in the vast majority of cases, a negotiated settlement is achieved. 

Some situations require that appeal(s) be filed to achieve our desired assessment. Our office works extensively with each assessor to resolve things without an appeal; however, should an appeal be warranted, PVS is fully equipped to manage the process. Filing an appeal is a complicated process, as each state, county and taxing jurisdiction has differing appeal processes. As such, the appeal phase of the tax cycle takes the remainder of the year.

Throughout my 26-year tenure, I have worked with the vast majority of our clients. It has always been the mission of PVS to work in the best interest of our clients. I truly value this mission and appreciate the atmosphere it creates. I have enjoyed this experience and am looking forward to many more years with PVS.  

Should you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, or any member of our PVS team, as we are always here to answer your questions. Thank you for your continued support.