SNOHOMISH — A wedding at a farm can be the perfect backdrop, but those farms that converted their barns into regularly booked wedding spaces or other uses got put on the back foot this summer.
The barn’s not agricultural anymore, so the land around it is not allowed to be given a special lowered property tax rate named Open Space. The tax fee for changing the land use out of Open Space is seven years of back taxes plus a 20% penalty.
At least a handful of farms in the Snohomish River Valley received sizable tax bills last summer.
Local lawmakers noticed. They have a new bill to clarify the rules, and the county assessor is on board.
