As you can see by my location thingy I live in New Jersey. Home of the highest property taxes in the country. The most important issue in the last election was how to lower property taxes. Now the legislature has passed some laws that make it look like they did something but it is largely ineffectual and meaningless (and possibly unconstitutional as I hear it, state constitution of course).
I could start a Pit thread about this but I am too angry for logical thought. Instead I want to find out exactly how much I am getting hosed. How much do you pay in property tax? I won’t mention my total until I can see if I should feel good about it or really bad. I think I know how this is going to go.
Just having people tell the dollar amounts of their taxes isn’t going to provide a good picture for comparision. You need to get a percentage of the property’s value. Otherwise, how do you know if a $1000 tax is worse per value than a $2000 tax? The high one might simply be a property worth twice as much!
In my immediate locale, residential properties are taxed at roughly 1% of their estimated market value per year. So a $100,000 property would get an annual tax bill of $1000.
It varies a lot within the state and even within one county, since there are many overlapping taxing jurisdictions.
That is only part of the equation. How often do you get reassed? How close to the real value of the house is the assesment? How often does it get raised? So yes the percentage would be something that would be interesting to know. I also would like an idea of the total dollar ammount. If housing prices are higher here that means that they should need a lower property tax. Do they really need to collect double the ammount of money here? Where does it all go? (don’t worry I know the answer to that one just stick to the OP).
If I’m reading my statement right, the rate here is .34 per $1,000. Most of it goes to fund the closest school and the city/public works. In dollars, it’s $806 a year, and the tax assessed value is about half the market value.
Perhaps we need to condense all that detail into some way of measuring the value of the “housing dollar” in comparative markets. Certainly a $100,000 house in market A might be a lot more house than one of the same value in market B. After adjusting for that factor, we could compare the tax amounts more fairly.
Because altho I can answer your questions individually, I don’t think they add much to the attempt to find out if taxes are high. Example: “How often do you get reassessed?” Doesn’t matter, it’s often enough to keep the assessed values close to the sale values. “How close to the real value…?” As close as can be estimated in the absence of sales. “How often does it get raised?” As often as necessary to keep the assessed values close to the sale values.
So I don’t think that helps much.
In my state, the state forces reassessments whenever the values get out of line more than a specified amount (percentage plus time). Since reassessments are expensive, some tolerance for fluctuations is built in, but not too much. Any way you look at it, the assessed values are supposed to be as close to actual values as possible.
I think we’ve been paying around $2400/year for just under two acres, a house, and a separate garage. Our property is worth roughly $240K. We are unincorporated and have our own well, so no services are included in that figure. I believe my SIL in another Chicago suburb pays double that.
Just to put some perspective on it. Washington doesn’t have a state income tax does it? Ours tops off around 8%. Do you have a sales tax? Ours is 7%. They scramble to reassess as often as possible, especially lately. As this cite shows (scroll down) property taxes have gone up in my county an average of 93.3% over the last 10 years. Is it a wonder that there are a record number of people leaving the state?
Sorry forgot to add that rates and housing costs are lower out here in the wilderness of western New Jersey. If I lived where I grew up I would probably be paying double what I am now.
Los Angeles County; our “General Tax Levy” is 1% of our home’s value, which starts out as the purchase price of the home, and then increases about 1% a year, less a modest “homeowners’ exemption”. Then we have several line items of “Voted Indebtedness” for things such as Unified Schools, Community College, Flood Control, etc. Then there are “Direct Assessments” for things such as local 911 service, sanitation, park districts, trauma/emergency services, etc., which, when added together brings our overall property tax liability to approximately 1.11%.
And yes, the county made out like a bandit on our property when we bought it, more than doubling their tax revenue over what the previous owners were paying.
Don’t get me started. There’s a reason why it’s called TAX-achusetts. I’m guessing ours is probably right up there with yours, Loach.
Ours went up 40% this year, thanks to misappropriation of state funds for the construction of 2 new elementary schools, as well as backpay for the now 3-year old new high school. Last year we passed 3 separate overrides. The RE market’s stagnant here, yet there are “For Sale” signs all over the place.
Did I mention that my town has the highest number of elderly residents in the general area?
::stops before she goes into an all-out Pit-worthy rant::
I live in TN, which has no income tax. The sales tax is 9.75%. I own a 150 yr old 2300 sq ft. farmhouse on 13 acres. The land itself is probably worth $130K, not including the house. I live out in the county, so there are no city property taxes. I have city water (and a well). My taxes are about $400/yr.
Upstate NY: I pay about $2200 a year (town, county, and school taxes). The house is assessed at the purchase price, but it worth at least twice that, and they have a weird fractional assessment so my actual assessed valuation is 3100.
The town is going through a reassessment right now. I’ve had the house over 25 years, so I expect my taxes to go up when it’s done.
I’m in your neck of the woods, Loach, South Burlington county, to be precise, and yeah, property taxes suck big time, especially when I know I could save about $2000 by moving 20 minutes west into Pennsylvania. My abode is approximately 3400 sq/ft and sits on a half acre. I paid $7341 in bloody property taxes in 2006. I say ‘paid’ because I get reassessed every stinking year in December, and guess what, it goes up every year, thaaaaaaat’s right.
You know what? I’m looking out my window and I can see Pennsylvania. I live right in the Delaware Valley (the high ground) and I can see the high ground of the Pennsy side from my house. Legally I can’t live in another state and keep my job or I would be gone.
Washington State has no income tax. The state sales tax ranges from 7 percent to 9.3 percent, depending upon which locality you make a purchase.
However, if you live along the southern border, you can always make your ordinary sales purchases in Oregon which has no sales tax. On top of that, Washington residents can claim a sales tax exemption on their federal income taxes, based on where they live. So it’s possible to make practically all of your purchases in Oregon (and pay no sales tax), then file your federal income tax claiming your local sales tax exemption (using the standard deduction), and end up with a double bonus in your pocket.