So to confirm my understanding then, the Supplemental Tax bill is basically just the difference between the assessed value of the prior owner and my new assessed value (ie my purchase price) * the tax rate I looked up on the auditor's website * a pro-rating based on when I bought the property during the year, right?

I pull lists off of an auditor site and skip trace them to find names of people to call.

I took the liberty of looking the property up on the county auditor site.

Auditor was very nice and really, we came to a good win win.

@Chris Oligee The Franklin County Auditor has a tax calculator that allows you to plug in the new purchase price.

More info here (in particular the PDF link to all transfer tax exemptions available): https://www.acgov.org/auditor/...

You don't need a coach but if you're looking for someone, go to your auditor's site and find the owner of multiple buildings and ask them for help!

The auditor is stating that it is my responsibility, as STR owner, to pay tax on the service fee that VRBO charges guests. 

There's a lot of misconceptions about the benefits of LLC's because people don't take the time to research with credible sources.To lower your chances of an IRS audit or to improve your chances of surviving one, you should have separate accounts for business vs personal income & expenses.An LLC can be a great way to do this. 

Usually starting with a subscription database, like the MLS, realist, auditor database query and supplemented with internet research and personal interviews.Now, if there are truly no sales, then you need to have the valuation skills to use outside data for sales analysis, income analysis, and/or depreciated cost analysis.