New Property Assessments -> Property Taxes!

[athena53]

My friend in northern Georgia had her RE taxes drop from about $2400/year to $600/year after she turned 65.

There’s some sort of senior tax break there. Georgia looks tax friendly for those of us 65 and older.

The states in my area (MO and KS) have breaks only for low-income seniors. Note also that some states are just deferring a portion of the taxes and will collect the remainder when the house is sold, which I think is a good compromise.

According to the local paper, increases in assessed values are expected to be around 30% this year. They're done every 2 years here. My property taxes went up 7.7% from 2020 to 2021 and 15% form 2021 to 2022 so they're definitely increasing the millage rate.

I fully intend to appeal anything exorbitant- values should be going down as mortgage interest rates skyrocket. I'll have a couple of decent comps- neighbor next to me, bought a year ago, can adjust for her higher square footage, and one on the market 2 doors down, about the same square footage as mine.

 

[Gumby]

Personally, I have always considered property taxes a wealth tax. I agree that funding for schools, libraries, social services, etc. has to come from somewhere, but those with larger, higher assessed homes do not automatically use those services more than folks in more modest abodes.....

Whether I use those things or not, they are all things that contribute toward making my town a pleasant place to live and keeping the property values high. For instance, the young wife and I have never used the schools in our town because we have no children. Over half of the town budget goes to the school system, and my taxes are more than twice the median in my town, so I have paid a lot over the past 31 years to educate other people's children. But I see it as in my interest to make sure those schools are good and that they graduate well educated, productive members of the community, so I don't mind paying. Similarly, I don't mind paying for the police department and the fire department, although I hope I never have occasion to call on them.

At the end of the day, the question is whether one sees oneself as a part of the community or as a solitary actor. I suppose I could live in a hut out in the wilderness and not have to pay any property tax, but I don't think I would enjoy that.

 

[Ablatus]

All states and taxing jurisdictions have taxes, but there are dozens of ways to get them. And property taxes are just one way. It wouldn’t make sense to move to a state where you save $2,000 in property taxes only to find out they have a huge income tax and massive sales tax that cost you $20,000 a year. The time to find out these details is before you move there.

For this type of research I like TaxFoundation.org as they can see what the total tax bite is in each state you are considering.

By the way, tax schemes like Proposition 13 don’t cost the state or counties money. They just transfer the tax burden to neighbors and friends. So identical houses next door to each other may have taxes that are wildly different. First one in the gate wins. California residents (I was one at the time) in the 70’s successfully passed laws that reduced their taxes, and transferred them to future neighbors and future generations. The taxes they would have normally paid are now transferred to the new neighbors who just bought and must now pay many times the tax rate of the person who moved in 30 years ago. In California this is loved by seniors that have been there forever and is considered fair and just. In Montana this would violate the state constitution which requires that all property taxes be based upon 100% of market value, and that taxes must be fair and equitable. Realize that different states often have completely different views as to fairness and charity towards certain populations like us seniors. You probably need to determine those rules and economic climate as well before you move someplace.

I had to retire with half my salary due to disability I can control my spending, but I can't control my income. My house is tripled in value since I bought it and if my taxes tripled, it would eat up all my income and then I would have nothing to pay for my house or my food or anything else so I do like proposition 13 and that's exactly why it passed.

 

[troutnut1]

I had to retire with half my salary due to disability I can control my spending, but I can't control my income. My house is tripled in value since I bought it and if my taxes tripled, it would eat up all my income and then I would have nothing to pay for my house or my food or anything else so I do like proposition 13 and that's exactly why it passed.

Apparently you didn’t read my earlier post about values in. relation to taxes. My value tripled as well but it didn’t affect my taxes. That is not how things work.

Many states had some sort of charity program built into the tax system to help people with low incomes. But California’s prop 13 is not one of them. It freezes taxes at low values regardless of how much income one might have. You could be a billionaire and still get the reduced taxes with your share of the community bills being transferred to others.

I’m happy it works for you. But there is nothing really fair about the house I just sold having a tax increase of over 500% just because somebody else bought it. They may have income problems one day too. In Montana such breaks are reserved for people who can document low income, or who are disabled veterans.

 

[RetireEarly50s]

After reading this realizing how good property taxes are here knew they were good but I guess really good, currently $1,600 on a house valued at $720k, only pay $800 with 50% reduction for being a historical property. With the rise in property values our county actually lowered the tax rate this year.

 

[Koolau]

Very true. But the word you're looking for is progressive tax. For most of US history, this would have been considered unconstitutional. But the idea that those who have more should pay more tax kept popping up. That biblical thing about "to whom much is given" and all. The fourteenth amendment codified it into law. You can agree or disagree with the premise, but it's widely accepted now.





Full agreement here. Making taxing decisions at the lowest level of government allows for all kinds of abuse. Municipalities are in a continual battle to try to collect as much as they can to support all the services and programs the citizens demand. It's not surprising that they turn to every trick available to them to get more. And don't even get me started on HOAs and condo associations. I'm not sure I have a good solution.

At the back of the minds of all taxing authorities should be the old story about the goose that laid golden eggs. The U-Haul statistics are telling when it comes to affordability (including RE taxes) within jurisdictions. YMMV