So if property taxes are below FMV they go up 3% a year. That's 30% in 10 years, kind of a lot if you happen to be on a fixed income, or want to take time for your kids, or for better job training. Maybe you'd better sell. Or let's say you need to rent that house. As is, you'll have to raise the rent 3% a year just to cover the tax increase. In the metro counties, as in Seattle or SF, housing prices are putting everyone on the street, and property taxes do play a role. We need to make housing affordable and raising property taxes to match skyrocketing home values will not help.
You’re analysis might want to consider Oregon’s overall heavy tax burden. We are already have one of the highest tax basis. Finding additional ways to increase the State’s budget so it can increase spending is not the solution. I’d suggest we look at a sales tax, lower income tax and a more effective educational system (school choice). Fixing the revenue side without dealing with the spending side (e.g., PERS reform) is a challenge
You are so right about the mess we're in with property taxes. It surprises me that local jurisdictions don't push legislators on this issue. In the 18 years I've been watching I've not seen even one concerted effort to get legislative energy to the issue.
It's the assessed value for computation of property taxes which can go up 3 percent a year. The tax rate is constrained by the limits constutionalized by M50. The results are not a drastic raise in your property tax bill - they create a disparity between property values used to compute your property tax.
Jen’s point was that a 3% increase in assessed value can be a burden by itself. That doesn’t seem to be a huge increase. Under your proposal, moving the assessed value up to fair market value would be much more damaging. Take the original scenario of one house being assessed a 1% levy on a $400k basis that is now moved to mirror the neighbor’s house of $800k (assuming a purchase 10 years earlier and a 10% annual increase in market value - not compounded). That change would be a 100% increase in assessed taxes. That would be an increase of property tax from $4,000 to $8,000.
That would force the most vulnerable people to flee to rural communities, increase commute times and increase climate changes. While the wealthy people could simply pick up their marbles and move to a lower taxed state. Fewer income taxes received from those that flee the state pushes a further tax burden across those unable to leave. It’s a vicious downward spiral
The question we dealt with in the two blog posts was inequity. Two properties, depending on the date on which the constitution dictated they be valued, have differing tax bills. That difference drives other parts of the property tax puzzle. It means that land owners are treated diffently by the system, and are not all are sharing according to the value of their property. There are statutory ways to fix this, but as part of a large section of the Oregon Constitution (Read Article XI, Section 11 in its entirity to understand the complexity), change it difficult and legislators relucant to go there. There are also ways to equalize values on an annual basis, leaving other parts of the system intact, and ways to phase in impact (you can see one in the fine print of Section 11).
Great article. Reporting on the ground, in 2022... We had a hearing today with the Board of Property Tax Appeal and we proposed a re-assessment of our home with the current Real Market Value multiplied by a value used by the County Assessor, called the 'CPR' (Changed Property Ratio), used to set the actual Assessed Value (AV) everyone see's on their bills. For evidence towards our request, we applied the same logic to our neighbors' assessed values, and what do you know... our AV went down and everyone else's went up! The change in AV was drastic for us, as we are punching in well over our tax payment weight, while the increase for our neighbors was 5-10%. Seems right, right? It was all well received and reasonable according to the appeal board, however, they have no way in law to do such re-assessment. Measure 50 working hard to keep inequity growing and growing. To lighten things up, I offered to burn our house down as a way to get it re-assessed, and they agreed that would be an actual way to fix our assessed value.
Jen
So if property taxes are below FMV they go up 3% a year. That's 30% in 10 years, kind of a lot if you happen to be on a fixed income, or want to take time for your kids, or for better job training. Maybe you'd better sell. Or let's say you need to rent that house. As is, you'll have to raise the rent 3% a year just to cover the tax increase. In the metro counties, as in Seattle or SF, housing prices are putting everyone on the street, and property taxes do play a role. We need to make housing affordable and raising property taxes to match skyrocketing home values will not help.
You’re analysis might want to consider Oregon’s overall heavy tax burden. We are already have one of the highest tax basis. Finding additional ways to increase the State’s budget so it can increase spending is not the solution. I’d suggest we look at a sales tax, lower income tax and a more effective educational system (school choice). Fixing the revenue side without dealing with the spending side (e.g., PERS reform) is a challenge
You are so right about the mess we're in with property taxes. It surprises me that local jurisdictions don't push legislators on this issue. In the 18 years I've been watching I've not seen even one concerted effort to get legislative energy to the issue.
It's the assessed value for computation of property taxes which can go up 3 percent a year. The tax rate is constrained by the limits constutionalized by M50. The results are not a drastic raise in your property tax bill - they create a disparity between property values used to compute your property tax.
Jen’s point was that a 3% increase in assessed value can be a burden by itself. That doesn’t seem to be a huge increase. Under your proposal, moving the assessed value up to fair market value would be much more damaging. Take the original scenario of one house being assessed a 1% levy on a $400k basis that is now moved to mirror the neighbor’s house of $800k (assuming a purchase 10 years earlier and a 10% annual increase in market value - not compounded). That change would be a 100% increase in assessed taxes. That would be an increase of property tax from $4,000 to $8,000.
That would force the most vulnerable people to flee to rural communities, increase commute times and increase climate changes. While the wealthy people could simply pick up their marbles and move to a lower taxed state. Fewer income taxes received from those that flee the state pushes a further tax burden across those unable to leave. It’s a vicious downward spiral
The question we dealt with in the two blog posts was inequity. Two properties, depending on the date on which the constitution dictated they be valued, have differing tax bills. That difference drives other parts of the property tax puzzle. It means that land owners are treated diffently by the system, and are not all are sharing according to the value of their property. There are statutory ways to fix this, but as part of a large section of the Oregon Constitution (Read Article XI, Section 11 in its entirity to understand the complexity), change it difficult and legislators relucant to go there. There are also ways to equalize values on an annual basis, leaving other parts of the system intact, and ways to phase in impact (you can see one in the fine print of Section 11).
Everything you say is all code for "let's raise your taxes." Period.
Great article. Reporting on the ground, in 2022... We had a hearing today with the Board of Property Tax Appeal and we proposed a re-assessment of our home with the current Real Market Value multiplied by a value used by the County Assessor, called the 'CPR' (Changed Property Ratio), used to set the actual Assessed Value (AV) everyone see's on their bills. For evidence towards our request, we applied the same logic to our neighbors' assessed values, and what do you know... our AV went down and everyone else's went up! The change in AV was drastic for us, as we are punching in well over our tax payment weight, while the increase for our neighbors was 5-10%. Seems right, right? It was all well received and reasonable according to the appeal board, however, they have no way in law to do such re-assessment. Measure 50 working hard to keep inequity growing and growing. To lighten things up, I offered to burn our house down as a way to get it re-assessed, and they agreed that would be an actual way to fix our assessed value.