Tax Office

Welcome to the Elephant Butte Irrigation District Tax Office. I would like to share with you a bit of history before we get into the details of how the Tax Office works. First of all, did you know that the District's assessments in 1919 were $0.95 per acre? In 1940 the assessment rose to a whopping $1.50 per acre. In 1978, the last year that the District remained under the Bureau of Reclamation, the assessment rate rose to $18.17 per acre. The tax roll base was not formed until sometime in the 1960s. The District's tax office was first established in 1979 and the District was responsible for 90,640 acres to be taxed at a rate of $19.45 per acre.

It's amazing that the District has held the cost of a constituent's assessment to a 38% increase in the past 24 years, while the number of accounts on the District's tax rolls has risen to just under 8,000.

The Tax Assessor, Robert Jaurigue has been with the District for 19 years. He says that he enjoys meeting all of the landowners in the valley and the personnel who work for EBID. Robert is most interested in all the changes that have occurred in the past years in the delivery of water. Robert is an amateur photographer and loves hunting and visiting his grandchildren.

Apart from the yearly tax statements the Tax Office is responsible for all delinquent taxes, mailers, water statements and collecting on any special use permits from the Engineering Department, construction done by the Maintenance Department and all accounts receivable. The Tax Office also handles the sale of gopher traps and pays a bounty for the tails of gophers caught in the traps. Another service that the District offers is to broker water from farmers having 2 water-righted acres and above that will not be using their water allotment for that year. A farmer's account must be paid in full before water can be brokered. The Tax Office is responsible for issuing new contract numbers and pro-rating tax assessments to all accounts based on Dona Ana County records.

Now that you have some understanding of the District's Tax office, we look forward to being of service to you in the near future.