I knew Minneapolis would keep jacking up their property taxes, but I didn't know the state as a whole would too.
And people wonder why property values keep dropping.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Property Values Down, Property Taxes Up
A neato little chart that actually surprised me which shows property tax revenue for the state overtime. You would think with the collapse in property values, property taxes, which are BASED on property values would go down. Hoo ho ho! You foolish boy;
I knew Minneapolis would keep jacking up their property taxes, but I didn't know the state as a whole would too.
And people wonder why property values keep dropping.
I knew Minneapolis would keep jacking up their property taxes, but I didn't know the state as a whole would too.
And people wonder why property values keep dropping.
I'm a victim of this even up here in the Live Free or Die state. My condo's assessed value is about 85% of what I paid for it in 2009 (and it's only that low because I successfully challenged the town's numbers), yet thanks to huge rate spikes every year I've lived here, my property taxes are maybe $500 less than they were when the assessed value was within a few thousand bucks of the purchase price.
ReplyDeleteIf I knew that owning a home was signing up to be a tax donkey, I would have kept renting. I suppose it's good to know that I'm not the only one getting screwed by rapacious government.
Greedy pricks...
ReplyDeleteThe ever-increasing exponential growth of the entitlement and public employee sector strikes again. My property valuation here in Maryland dropped by 40%, but my property taxes went up 15%. That sucks, but what makes it worse is that I'm in a conservative county!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe ever-increasing exponential growth of the entitlement and public employee sector strikes again. My property valuation here in Maryland dropped by 40%, but my property taxes went up 15%. That sucks, but what makes it worse is that I'm in a conservative county!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe ever-increasing exponential growth of the entitlement and public employee sector strikes again. My property valuation here in Maryland dropped by 40%, but my property taxes went up 15%. That sucks, but what makes it worse is that I'm in a conservative county!!!!
ReplyDeletesorry for the duplicate posts...not exactly following orders, am I? please delete duplicates, would you aaron?
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how many people still believe that they "own" their houses. Even if they haven't got a mortgage, they'll never be free of paying tribute to the local commissars on pain of being summarily evicted. It just goes to show that the biggest crime organization in the U.S. isn't the mafia, it's the govt.
ReplyDeleteThe government doesn't give up 'temporary taxes' without fighting tooth and nail. Why should we expect them to give up a tax, just because its basis has lost value.
ReplyDeleteCappy:
ReplyDeleteToo many people think that property taxes rise with the rise in value of a property - they are wrong.
In a market value assessment system your taxes rise and fall in comparison to other properties as their valuation changes. In other words in a year when local governments have a tax freeze and collect the same amount of taxes as the year before it is possible to have an increase in the value of your property and a decrease in the amount of property tax. This happens when the percentage increase in the value of your property is less than the average percentage increase in the value of all other properties in the same tax class.
The reason people make the mistake is all too often municipalities increase their tax grab every year pushing the tax take up a little on those whose relative value went down (even if the mumerical value went up) and they push the tax take up a lot on those whose relative value is higher than the average rise in property values.
Given that municipal costs are rising virtually yearly and property values have been rising as well, its a common mistake.
Darn it Cap, now I'm going to have to go through my property tax paid over the 20+ years I've been in my house and graph it in a nice chart vs. valuation and inflation rates. Somehow I have to factor in some improvements we made and maybe I'll back calculate the mill levy just for fun.
ReplyDeleteKey point here is that not only does your assessed value of the property matters, but also the mill levy. If the assessed valuation of all the properties within a taxing district fell 10%, to pull in 5% more revenue than last year in property taxes, the taxing district must raise the mill levy the 10% in lost valuation plus another 5% for the new revenue. That is how your taxes can go up even if your property value goes down.
Believe it or not, in the first few years out here, there were four out buildings that were in so bad of shape (unusable) and we demoed them. A fifth building had a collapsed wall, which we rebuilt and on which we installed a metal roof.
Our property valuation actually went up because the building were removed and the shed was repaired.
Two years ago, the barn finally collapsed, last year we had it burned by the fire dept and this year we took out the barn's foundation and the silo.
I suppose they'll hit us up again with big increase in assessed value the next time the assessor comes around.
Sigh.
There was an old man years ago who lived in Maple Grove, MN. A City "proud" of their beautiful hardwood "forests".
ReplyDeleteThe assesor kept raising this old mans taxes on this farmland he owned and he disputed the valuation. The assesor told him the value was in all the hardwood trees he had (acres and acres of old growth Maple and Oaks.).
The old man whipped out his chain saw and cut the entire woods down.
I thought that was coolest thing. What sucks is the old man did lose value in development of the property into housing down the road - but probably offset by the money he made on lumber value.
I wish I could find out if the City lowered his taxes after that... It made the local news as a lead story at the time.
There is no escaping the property taxes. If you own you are a "tax donkey" - if you rent, well guess what the landlord does?? Passes the taxes on down to you in form of rent increases...
ReplyDelete