I received my property tax notice in the mail yesterday. Paying your property tax is one of the joys in life. More so than other years, I was interested in seeing what the damage would be this particular year. If you’ve been following along, my apartment’s assessed value for this year jumped about 20% from last year, bringing it to its highest assessed value ever. There’s a common belief that your property tax is somewhat tied to your property’s assessed value. This isn’t necessarily true and every municipality calculates their taxes in slightly different ways.
A few weeks ago, I went onto my local municipality’s web site where they had a property tax estimator. I entered in all my info and the number that got spat out wasn’t too bad. Still, this was only an estimate and the real number came in yesterday. To my delight, the property tax I have to pay this year is the second lowest amount ever. Three years ago, I paid over $300 more than I will this year.
At least for my municipality, this does prove that your home’s assessed value cannot predict your property tax with any degree of accuracy.