Pamela Carley

Hello, my name is Pamela Carley.  I am pleased to report that I just wrapped up my 21st  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 over 14,000 returns in 34 states dealing with over 1,600 individual taxing jurisdictions this 2020 tax year.  Our department consists of myself, three managers, two team leads, and fourteen consultants.  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. 

This year my team had many challenges to overcome, as did many other companies, due to COVID-19.  Our department has been extremely successful in meeting these challenges by providing remote access to each employee. Moreover, as we had already allowed our employees to utilize remote access before the pandemic, 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.  Each team member really stepped up and all return deadlines were met without compromising employee safety!  

Our personal property tax filing season is quickly coming to a close for the 2020 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 can become quite intricate and is extremely time sensitive, PVS has created a dedicated team titled 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 towards 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 which reflect the assessor’s method of valuation. 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 processes for appeal.  As such, the appeal phase of the tax cycle takes the remainder of the year.

Over these 21 years, 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 PVS as we are always here to answer your questions.  Thank you for your continued support.