Of all the taxes we have to pay in this great country we live in, the Property taxes are probably the hardest to swallow on a year in year out basis. These along with all the other taxes put on the home owner make it hard to afford an expensive house. It gets worse as we become older and start getting close to retirement age. For instance we are living in a $150k home that we purchased 15 years ago. Husband and wife were both working at high paying jobs.
By now, fifteen years later the county has raised the tax assessment to near double the purchase price. Maybe more than $300k plus and the Property taxes are more than double. Now what do we do. Our children are all married and on their own, except the grand kids love to come and visit.
The place is so much nicer than what the kids can afford. The pool is still so very nice and yep it now costs $200 per month to maintain rather than the $75 per month when you first bought the place.
Now comes the really big problem, when you purchased the home the taxes were about $1800 per year, this only raised your monthly payment by $150 per month. Now 15 years later your taxes have increased to about $5000.00 maybe more and $375 to $500 added to you payment each month.
How can this be, you were able to make your payment with no problem when you first purchased the property. Your income was on the increase and you had no problems at all with it.
Now what has happened? Your income is starting to drop a good bit, as you or your wife have retired. Everything has gone up and your property taxes have almost tripled. How can you afford the property now? You must face the truth, you can no longer afford your beloved home.
So now your faced with one of two choices, sell the property and find something cheaper, or refinance the property in order to be able to keep living there. Such is the pitiful regression that property taxes bring upon us. Even though we could not afford to buy the property now, they still increase our taxes annually this is the consequences of the property tax quagmire we all have to suffer through.
Property taxes are based on these two factors: assessed value and mill rate. The value of the property should be about 80 to 85 percent of the tax assessment. Or meaning to say at least in a vast majority of areas, if the property is assessed at 100000.00 the millage rate will be taken from the 80 per cent value. This is not set in concrete but should be very close. The two items. appraisal and millage go together to determine the taxable amount.
Most state governments established millage rates years ago. Most all were established using a millage rate. When initially established the millage rates had a cap of maybe 6 to 10 mills and according to the initial laws laid down at the time and the only way the politicians could get the rates voted in was by putting a cap or limit on the millage rates. Most state laws require a constitutional amendment in order to change the cap. So most of the states had millage rates somewhere in the middle or center of the millage cap,
Then along came 9/11/01, at that time the federal authorities cut most of its state funding or revenue sharing (as it was called at the time) programs, some were cut in half some by twenty five percent and a lot were cut completely. So now the states lost all of this money and what happened? Should not have to say it! Here comes the county and city governments, who all of a sudden lost 50 to 60 per cent of their revenue sharing funds and some or all of their federal grant funds.
So what happened at the time? Of course due to the federal governments justifiable huge expenditures on the war on terror, City and County governments had no choice but to raise property taxes, or cut back, way back on new schools, and everything else. A large part of these governments are now running just about on the limit of their constitutionally allowed millage rate.
In many states if not most, the property taxes increased dramatically, some more than doubled. In others the taxing authorities are fighting very hard for a constitutional amendments in order to raise the millage rate. All kinds of shenanigans usually goes on to get this done.
In conclusion, you need to look around in your area and determine how many other houses are from about the same plan as your home, construction wise. If there are several and all look about the same, go to the tax appraisers office and pull the appraisals on the ones you believe to be similar to your home. If there are big differences find out why?
You can investigate this on your on. When you have done a good investigation and you find things that are not as they should be, then is the time to confront the tax appraiser. Just be careful and do not step on too many toes during you investigation. Would be bad to get an unnecessary tax increase.
Visit Jimmy Woodalls Property Taxes Website and see many additional articles as well as several news and video feeds on the subject At: http://www.jwoodl.com/property-taxes , hopefully will be much help to you. If you happen to be into Affiliate marketing are maybe you are considering giving it a try visit : http://freegiveaways.jwoodl.com/index.html get your three mktg eBooks there NO OBLIGATION Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jimmy_Woodall |  |
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