Journal Article

\\"What's it worth? Property taxes and assessment practices\\"

Abstract: Residential property taxes are both a major source of local government financing and a significant cost of owning a home. Tax limitation measures and relatively moderate gains in house prices during most of the 1990s tended to keep property taxes from rising rapidly in those years. But from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, house prices once again rose sharply. Property taxes followed a similar path, bringing them to greater public attention once again. Now that house prices appear to have shifted to a level or downward trend in most parts of the country, there seems to be increasing concern that real estate valuations for property taxes are not promptly reflecting declining values. In ?What?s It Worth? Property Taxes and Assessment Practices,? (256 KB, 10 pages) Tim Schiller focuses on how tax authorities measure value and calculate tax liabilities, the shortcomings of some of these processes, and the remedies that have been, or can be, implemented to make real estate assessment more accurate and equitable.

Keywords: Property tax; Home ownership; Revenue;

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Part of Series: Business Review

Publication Date: 2011

Issue: Q3

Pages: 21-30