Anchorage seeks 90-day deadline to recertify existing tax exemptions

Churches, nonprofits and other owners of fully tax-exempt Anchorage property would have 90 days to answer a certification request, instead of waiting for the next March 15 filing deadline, under a change the Property Appraisal Division is asking the Anchorage Assembly to make. The shift applies only to annual certification responses for exemptions already granted. Owners applying for a new exemption would still face the March 15 deadline.

The division says the shift would spread review work across the calendar. Paired with added audit capacity, it estimates the change would move completion of the current exemption review from about 2032 to about 2030. The change requires a municipal code amendment. The Assembly has not approved one.

Alaska News previously covered the division's report to the Assembly, which found that reviewing roughly 570 flagged tax-exempt properties would take until late 2031 or early 2032 at current staffing. The report put a potential future-year tax burden shift of about $811,000 at stake, about 0.12 percent of the total property tax revenue levied for 2026. The report cautions that figure reflects what could be collected if improperly exempted property were placed on the taxable roll going forward. It should not be read as an estimate of prior-year recoverable revenue, which the division says is likely to be far more limited, uncertain and case specific. The Municipal Clerk's Office accepted that report on July 21. It responded to a resolution the Assembly adopted March 24 directing a comprehensive audit of fully exempt property. Anchorage carries 813 nonprofit religious, charitable, cemetery, hospital and educational properties worth $1.56 billion in exempt value, alongside 2,993 government parcels worth $5.75 billion.

The bottleneck is timing. Annual certification responses are tied to March 15, and determinations generally must be finished by May 15 to support tax billing. Many applicants wait until near the deadline, concentrating the year's workload into a short window. The division received nearly 2,000 appeals and more than 4,000 exemption applications in 2026. It dedicates about 55 percent of one full-time position to exemption audits. The remaining work is estimated at 120 full-time employee weeks.

The division also recommends moving away from a uniform review schedule. Higher-risk exemptions would be audited every three years, while primary-purpose, use-based exemptions would be audited every six years. Ownership-based exemptions, such as government-owned property, would receive an annual systematic review but generally no defined periodic audit cycle unless that review flags a potential compliance issue.

"This approach would distribute responses more evenly throughout the year, reduce unnecessary follow-up, improve response timeliness, reduce avoidable hardship and appeals, and allow the Division to use its available review capacity more effectively," wrote Municipal Assessor Jack Gadamus, who prepared the report.