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off topic: a rant about real estate taxes

D

Doug in Illinois

Member
Well folks, last year my r.e. taxes were 5083.
This year they are 9440.
All I did different is put up a 30x50 building, at a cost of 20,895 and had 3000 dollars of dozer work done.
5083 is way too high already. 9440 is impossible on my income.
We paid about 156,000 for this property 5 or 6 years ago.
Now they are saying it is worth 283,200.
Boy, I hope it is worth that. The real estate agent I use is going to list it Monday.
We are going to move to Missouri where property taxes are MUCH lower. 8.7 acres, 8 year old, 3 bed, 2 bath house with a storage building has taxes of 1059.59 a year.
Nothing to keep us in Illinois much longer. I had a stroke 2 years 5 months ago. I was a rural mail carrier, but not any more.
DOUG
 
My state and county and school district are all on spending binges, we are in the same boat here. Prop taxes have risen on me 23-25% a year the last 5 years, and now a new $6,000,000 school is going to be added starting next year on top of that.

Just terrible.

Paul
 
After they messed up the taxes in Indiana, my property tax doubled in 5 years. Then we have some crazy 1, 2 & 3% rates. 3% for commercial. 1% on homestead. Any other properties that are not commercial are 2%. BYW, you can only have one homestead, so all other properties you own are taxed at 2%.

The cost of living never seems to go down, inflation. So are you on a fixed income?

My combined property taxes is over $7600. My insurance on everything is north of that figure. It's crazy to think how much I spend on just property taxes and insurance, not to mention State, Fed, and local income tax. I feel like I've been taxed and insured to death.
 
(quoted from post at 02:14:48 10/18/14) My state and county and school district are all on spending binges, we are in the same boat here. Prop taxes have risen on me 23-25% a year the last 5 years, and now a new $6,000,000 school is going to be added starting next year on top of that.

Just terrible.

Paul
Click to expand...

At 6 mil that's gonna be one nice double wide... Schools around here run 20/25 mil plus.... Ell they renovated one and it cost over 20 mil....
 
Just be sure to check the taxes aren't set to go way up as soon as you buy. Some states have tax and assessment caps until a property changes hands and then it gets re-assessed (like here in Michigan). I'll assume your taxes in Illinois did not almost double just because of a pole barn that might of increased your property value by $10,000. Sounds like they just did a general reassessmentt?
 
I better get ready. After trying three times to get a school bond passed it did. They will tell you it will almost always pass the third time. And you need to give a talk at the senior citizen center because they know there is not a senior citizen that doesn't have some relation employed by the school district. They show the plans in the newspaper before the vote and now ready to start moving dirt and the site slopes 10 feet more the then they thought. Its going to take more money to correct.
 
Yes, it sounds like somewhat of a general reevaluation.
Most people did not get hit as hard as we did.
Prior year on the land was 2106, now it is 2232.
On the buildings it was 2977. Now it is 7208.
My wife has talked to a few people in the last few days, since the new assessment came out.
2106 + 5.9 percent = 2230.25. Close enough for my figures.
Most people went up by about that.
DOUG
 
Just a slight correction. Property isn't reassessed when it sells in Michigan,it just comes uncapped and the previous assessed value becomes the new taxable value. If it's reassessed it's because there was a split and it went on as a new parcel. An assessor can't pick out one existing parcel for a reassessment. They can reassess 20% of the parcels in a township every year tough. Personally,in the 18 years or so that I've been on Board of Review,I don't know of a parcel that was reassessed in the year it changed hands,except that year that we got a new assessor and she was hired because we needed a total reassessment of the entire township. Everything was reassessed at once.

I don't know of another state that has the same two tier property assessment system that we have in Michigan,where you have an assessed value and a taxable value.
 
Off topic again, but Quinn is part of the problem.
Rauner is just as bad as Quinn.
The nnalert in Chicago will make sure Quinn gets reelected. Too many dead people voting.
Rauner is as bad as Quinn. No good choice this time.
DOUG
 
I left off a zero, 60 million. Oops. ;)

They plan to be occupying it in 2016.

So far they haven't located the 60 acres they want to build it
on...........

I think kids need good schools, and every 40 years or so you
need to invest in some new structure as you go.....

But this district is going for the Cadillac version, and has had 6
different plans in the last 10 years so as I don't trust the. With
any money......

Mn changed how property taxes are or,ed out, think the town
folk finally figured out their property taxes will go up 20-100
bucks the next 20 years, farmers property tax will go up $1000
to 6000 a year.......

And here we are.

Paul
 
I remember back in the 80's when I lived in Chicago near O'Hare Airport, a neighborhood called Jefferson Park. For tax purposes, the City of Chicago appraised everyone's property at 3 times the values one day, just like that. Overnight the property value where I lived went from $100,000 to $300,000 in one swoop which I later sold at its value of $100,000. Our Alderman, Puchinski told us all that he voted against the raise, and then a couple of days later the list was published who voted what, and our Alderman was at the top of the list that pushed for it. That Saturday hundreds of us stormed his local office short of torches in our hands, and his arm slid under a window blind and stuck a sign up in the window that said "Alderman Puchinski is not here, please go home". He was voted out of office not long afterwards.

Mark
 
In Ohio you can contest your evaluation . First you can have an informal meeting with the assessor and can bring evidence such as recent sales prices of similar properties. If the assessor agrees or you compromise then you are home free. If you can't agree then you can file with the board of revisions.
 
I live in the town limits for the last 44 years and when the house was built on a 1/4 acre lot with public water and sewage. Taxes were $400.00
the first year now they're over $4000.00. Cost of the house back then was $33000.00 with a 2 car garage. If you have saved a few dollars there's no way to lower the taxes.

My nephew inherited the home my parents bought when they gave up farming. It's a big rancher and he only makes minimum wages. The lot alone could be commercial where it's located. He only pays $150.00 in real estate taxes. He also qualifies for Medicaid. An Auto Zone parts store paid $400000.00 just for the lot down the road from him. Hal
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Last year my taxes where around $200 and that is for every thing but then I do live way out in no place land and my buildings are old or at least look like they are. Of course I am in Missouri a very rural area
 
You are going about it the right way, the only way anything will ever change is if the tax payers refuse to be penalized. Good luck selling your place and finding another place.
 
Another rip off is inheritance tax. Just because a family was able to make a good living and accumulate quite bit of land, and some money. Upon the death of family elders, now comes the tax man with his hand out. This didn't happen to me, but the neighbors kids had to sell the farm just to pay the taxes. Some how that isn't right. Stan
 
I think I heard on the news, the tax problem in Illinois is the reason some businesses are moving to Indiana. Illinois has an unfunded state pension fund that is killing them.

In the 70's Indiana had the same problem. I'm glad they fixed our problem then or we would be in same mess. Tax and spend.
 
North Dakota has a system with assessed and taxable values. It is a royally messed up system. At least if you live in a rural area it is messed up in the right direction.
 
It also might be that you bought your property at a real low point, 5 or 6 years ago? And now property values are going up pretty much everywhere. In Michigan, they can only go up 5% or less than the inflation rate? Rlund will know!!
 

I would bet the land deal was already figured out before the new school deal came thru.... Its all about the money and some politician will fair well from it....

The last school bond to pass here was passed because they said either pass it are taxes will go up to pay for it... Can someone tell me when taxes have ever go down I voted NO but it skeered enuff to vote yes to pass it...
 
Just watch the tax rate in the county in MO. Mine is pretty cheap,12year old house with a couple of sheds, on 40ac, with rural water just off of the main hwy,$2000.00 per year(including the personal tax on the cars,trucks,tractors and trailers. The next county south and you can double that.
 
Ours works as quite a reward for staying put. The longer you own a piece of property,the better bargain your taxes become in comparison to properties that have changed hands.
 
In the Midwest, property taxes are usually only assessed and only spent by local governments: school boards; cities; townships; and counties. The money all stays within the county. Assessed value ofter trails market value by several years. Read your tax assessment or talk to your county assessor to find out why your taxes changes so much.

When state governments make drastic cuts in aid to local governments in an effort to balance or reduce the state budget, local (property) taxes usually go up drastically to make up the difference in revenue.

Many states offer property tax rebates to people on fixed incomes, check with your tax accountant or state tax department. You may need to live in the house all year to qualify for a rebate i.e., if you sell before 1-1-2015 no rebate for 2014.

Will your handle change to "doug in missouri"?
 
Il assessed evaluation is 33% of the property value and farmland is on productivity and other factors. Every three years it is reassessed. In Dewitt county, schools make up about 65% of my taxes.

Doug, you shed cost $30K, so your EVA should be around $10K increase. The change of your rate will be the rest of the equation. You should have gotten a notification of the increase eariler this year before the first installment and could have appealed it at that time.

My taxes on my house have tripled in 30 years, mostly because of schools and the staff raises.

I know some times the grass looks greener on the other side but look before you leap.
 
$6 million is pretty cheap for a new school building. Our last bond was for a new $80 million high school, the district has a little over 1,000 high school students.
 
Don't even get me started!!!

Our town's in the middle of a 60 million dollar school build.

60 MILLION dollars.

Our population is 8000

The worst part about this - MY kids have to go to school in trailers while they tear the old buildings down and build the new ones.

Some how - trailers suffice for my kids, but other kids need a 60 million dollar palace to learn.

I can't stand it.

I was just having my morning coffee the other day and read in the local paper a discussion about the $10,000 murals for the atrium.

I had to get up and throw the paper in the trash before my head exploded.
 
This county, 50, has very high property taxes. According to tax-rates.org "[b:9558ba3fac]McDonough County has one of the highest median property taxes in the United States[/b:9558ba3fac], and is ranked 689th of the 3143 counties in order of median property taxes. McDonough County is ranked 487th of the 3143 counties for property taxes as a percentage of median income." Since the property taxes stay in the county I don't see how we can blame any one but the 'elephants' on the county board. It is not because of WIU, except possibly the cost of rental housing. Taxes in the adjacent counties are quite a bit lower than McDonough's. I don't have an explanation why.
 
How many of you complaining are doing anything about it? Do you go to your local municipality board meetings? Do you attend school board meeting? Do you even vote? Do you have your legislators number on speed dial? Are you writing letters to your state reps that are raising taxes every day? (Emails are ignored unless you threaten violence) Are you complaining about the money spent and taxes to the people who can do something about it? Or are you sitting home every meeting time watching tv or down at the watering hole or maybe hunting or something else?

The only way you can fight this stuff is to get active. You need to sit through those endless boring meetings, read the news, do some investigating of your own or else you're just spinning your wheels. If you're one of the people asking for new street signs, after school basketball, free services for certain groups, new services or renovations, etc. then you shouldn't be surprised at any of this.
 
Yes sirree.....it all about spend, spend, spend. I think that your school board is taking a bribe by a contractor to build a new school. Just sayin.

In my area pupil enrollment is DOWN....But a new elementry school was put up 5 years ago. Funding needs to be cut by voting down all increases.
 
(quoted from post at 04:41:06 10/18/14) How many of you complaining are doing anything about it? Do you go to your local municipality board meetings? Do you attend school board meeting? Do you even vote? Do you have your legislators number on speed dial? Are you writing letters to your state reps that are raising taxes every day? (Emails are ignored unless you threaten violence) Are you complaining about the money spent and taxes to the people who can do something about it? Or are you sitting home every meeting time watching tv or down at the watering hole or maybe hunting or something else?

The only way you can fight this stuff is to get active. You need to sit through those endless boring meetings, read the news, do some investigating of your own or else you're just spinning your wheels. If you're one of the people asking for new street signs, after school basketball, free services for certain groups, new services or renovations, etc. then you shouldn't be surprised at any of this.
Click to expand...

Brett, you are pretty much right. I have missed only one town meeting in 41 years in this town and have been on some board or committee pretty much the whole time. Schools are a different thing. Only about half as many of the general population that attend town meeting will attend the school meeting, but the parents will pack it and pretty much whatever they want gets passed. For years when I was on the budget committee I used to say that it is not what we say it is who attends the meeting. The time spent going over the budget with a fine tooth comb would be better spent going door to door trying to get people to come to the meeting.
 
NY also has separate multi-tier assessed values versus taxable value. It's done for several reasons. Also - the towns establish their own percentages of what an assessment represents. In the town of Worcester NY where I am selling off right now - all property is assessed at 60% of actual value.

In regard to Michigan, I own two properties that were both reassessed when I bought them. NO splits. One in Presque Isle County and one in Alpena County. I took both to court via a judge sent from Lansing and I won with both. I'm talking about the actual assessment. So yes, it is done. Is it done legally? Perhaps not. That is why I fought them. But if a property owner does not fight it - it gets set in stone. By the way, my initial complaints with the local boards of review were useless. I used to be on the board of review in my area of NY and we did things with a bit more equity. Especially useless were the board members in Maple Ridge Township, Alpena County. Their collective attitude was - if the assessor puts a value on the property, it MUST be correct because he is an expert. What a joke!

One nice thing that Rick Snyder did is to change the tax law so that "virtual cap" stays in place if a family member transfers ownership of a house to another family member. We might be involved in one of those deals soon.
 
"Done legally",that's the thing. From other things you've said about things up there it sounds like somebody from the State Tax Commission needs to do some investigating.
As far as that Virtual Cap,the one thing I don't like about that is,it only applies to residential property,not ag property. So if I transfer this place to one of the boys who wants to farm,it will come uncapped unless it's enrolled in a farmland preservation program.
 
(quoted from post at 06:09:07 10/18/14) NY also has separate multi-tier assessed values versus taxable value. It's done for several reasons. Also - the towns establish their own percentages of what an assessment represents. In the town of Worcester NY where I am selling off right now - all property is assessed at 60% of actual value.

In regard to Michigan, I own two properties that were both reassessed when I bought them. NO splits. One in Presque Isle County and one in Alpena County. I took both to court via a judge sent from Lansing and I won with both. I'm talking about the actual assessment. So yes, it is done. Is it done legally? Perhaps not. That is why I fought them. But if a property owner does not fight it - it gets set in stone. By the way, my initial complaints with the local boards of review were useless. I used to be on the board of review in my area of NY and we did things with a bit more equity. Especially useless were the board members in Maple Ridge Township, Alpena County. Their collective attitude was - if the assessor puts a value on the property, it MUST be correct because he is an expert. What a joke!

One nice thing that Rick Snyder did is to change the tax law so that "virtual cap" stays in place if a family member transfers ownership of a house to another family member. We might be involved in one of those deals soon.
Click to expand...

There are errors in the assessments too. When we bought our current home property I went to the town office to check the assessing card. It revealed that I was being assessed for the lot that our neighbor's house was on. It had been sold off from my lot about ten years earlier, but had never been changed on the assessing maps. The people hat had sold the lot never checked and had continued to pay for it for that ten years. I told the assessor no thanks I'll pay for just my own property.
 
It's a good point, one does need to be active in regards to action taken, be it attending meetings, sending correspondence and or all things similar. I've yet to exhaust all of those means, have attended all applicable meetings and have gone on record speaking, particularly on planning/zoning, would have been foolish not to be heard, I did appreciate the results.
 
(quoted from post at 10:09:07 10/18/14) NY also has separate multi-tier assessed values versus taxable value. It's done for several reasons. Also - the towns establish their own percentages of what an assessment represents. In the town of Worcester NY where I am selling off right now - all property is assessed at 60% of actual value.
Click to expand...

When I was running for office it came as kind of shock to me to learn the ins and outs of the tax levy and the valuation thing. It's always sounded sooooo good when some town decide to use a 60% valuation for real estate taxes, 25% sounds even better! It makes it sound like the people are only paying on 60% or 25% of the assessed value of their property. The idea always sells like hot cakes. Thing is, it's nothing more than smoke and mirrors and a lie. In NY the State makes the determination on what the real property is valued at in general terms and sends down the State levy, the County decides on what the property is valued at using State rules and decides on it's levy. The Town Board and Assessor are basically handed the "bill", the levy, and told to meet the required amount of $$$. The "equalization rate" is what is used to take that 60% or 25% valuation and to get the full amount of money the levy calls for. IOW, it makes absolutely no difference if you have a 100% valuation rate or 10%, you are going to pay the same amount of money. I'm putting it in laymans terms because I don't know the specific and ultimately correct wording, but what it comes down to is you are going top pay the full bill tot he County and State one way or the other. The Town, Village or City then add in their own needs to the final bill. I know in our little Town the Towns portion of the tax levy is pretty freakin' small and we have less than $10K of wiggle room between the budget and hitting the 2% tax cap. We've managed to keep the levy static for 2 or 3 years now but next year looks pretty iffy.

Anyway, don't be fooled by the 60% valuation and think you're saving anything. You aren't. You are still paying 100% of your property taxes. The only time that rate really matters, so I'm told, is when the tax rates in surrounding Towns in the same school district go up. From what I understand that can be affected by the valuation rate...though I'm still confused on the mechanism that makes it matter.
 
Hey pal, come to NY!!!!!!!!!! Heh, heh!
Bret, you are right to a point. However NYC controls the votes and if they say the counties are going to implement programs, X,Y,Z and Delta, you will implement them regardless of cost.

George, had the same thing here a couple of years ago. Everybody yells about the taxes and yet we passed a large school renovation and construction project for the local school (with a declining enrollement) by a large voter margin. Only a small portion of the project was really needed. Simply insane.
 
Sort of flys in the face of the argument that if government was all at the local level it would be better run, more efficient and more accountable to the people.
 
I used to live in N.H. until 2005 when I moved to middle TN. In 1991 I bought a 2000 sq ft house and 24 x 24 garage on 3 acres, house had been lived in but was unfinished. Prop taxes over $5000 per year. I had the town board come inspect it, tax dropped to $3500. About 8 yrs later the town wanted more money to spend and hired a company to re-assess all property, I was home when they came. They parked in the road at the end of my drive and doubled the taxes without getting out of the car. I went to the town board, had them inspect again, back down to $3500. Moved to TN, bought a 2000 sq ft house, 26 x 36 garage on 31 acres, taxes are $500. N.H. has no sales tax, TN. has about 10%, I would have to spend $30,000 a year (which I don't) for the two tax bills to equal out.
 
It's not just up here in the north where things are screwed up. I've spoken to some amazingly arrogant and/or incompetent people in Lansing including one judge. One of the hearings that was supposed to take place in my behalf with a Lansing judge got postponed. Problem is they did not send me notice until a full week after the date it was supposed to take place. I drove 1500 miles to get to that hearing and back home, in the winter. Found a closed building and no judge to be found. When I called Lansing to find out what had happened - the head judge got on the phone with me. Besides cursing me out with many 4-letter words I cannot use here. he then told me he was a virtual god, could do anything he wanted, and there was nothing I could do about it. I got off the phone and called Jennifer Granholm's office. Never got to speak to her of course - but one of her underlings actually investigated that judge. He got a reprimand, I got an apology, along with a new judge and date. Not the sort of thing I'd expect from Lansing. A small town judge, yes.
 
(quoted from post at 16:28:52 10/18/14) Sort of flys in the face of the argument that if government was all at the local level it would be better run, more efficient and more accountable to the people.
Click to expand...

Sorry Edd, what exactly are you referring to?
 
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