tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post2358517265774999597..comments2014-11-24T19:57:55.041-05:00Comments on Property Tax in Dutchess County: Dutchess County 2011 Tax Rate Is Highest In DecadeBill Rubinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16139253202894399632noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-45998956373758482572011-01-31T10:40:36.899-05:002011-01-31T10:40:36.899-05:00@Anonymous: I agree with almost everything you sa...@Anonymous: I agree with almost everything you say. It’s probably true that most folks do not care about the tax rate or about changes in the tax rate. They presumably only care about how many dollars they must pay this year. I’m not writing this blog for those folks. I’m writing this blog for property owners who want to understand how high their property taxes are compared with their personal wealth, as measured by the value of their home. That’s exactly what tax rate in dollars per thousand dollars of market value measures. If home values fall significantly, as has happened in the last three years, you’re kidding yourself if you think that you’re coming out ahead with a slightly smaller tax amount. If you try to sell your home, you’ll see how much you’ve lost in the market. A smart prospective buyer will compare your tax rate with that of a similarly-priced home elsewhere, and will rightly conclude that the lower tax rate is the better bargain. In my view, a lower tax rate for your home is a better bargain for you even if you don’t sell your home.<br /><br />I’m also writing this blog for local government officials, tax policy wonks, and readers of the Poughkeepsie Journal. I agree with you that Steinhaus has done a relatively good job controlling spending in the last few years, since the economic meltdown. Steinhaus is smart enough to understand what’s happening with the County’s tax rate, and has gone way out of his way to avoid talking about it. Steinhaus doesn’t need this blog. But I’ve found that many government officials in other local jurisdictions are remarkably uninformed about the facts of property-tax life. See my posts on the Towns of Pleasant Valley and Hyde Park last fall. Similarly, the Poughkeepsie Journal has a long record of misunderstandings in reporting on property tax issues, evident in published stories. Many of my blog posts have addressed the Journal’s mistakes.Bill Rubinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16139253202894399632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-25010664198044323812011-01-30T20:15:05.626-05:002011-01-30T20:15:05.626-05:00So from your data and that of your posters, one sh...So from your data and that of your posters, one should conclude that although the tax rate increased, the county was able to keep property taxes from actually increasing. If property values go down, then the tax rate must go up in an inverse propotion for the tax levy to stay constant. Conversely, if property values go up, then the tax rate must be reduced in an inverse proportion for taxes to stay the same. Tax rate is just a multipler and I think that most folks don't need to care what the change in tax rate is - they really only need care about the bottom line - "how much are my taxes going to go up this year". In the case of Dutchess County, I also looked at my tax bill and noticed that DUTCHESS COUNTY TAXES DECREASED FROM 2010 to 2011. Thanks, Mr. Steinhaus for taking the lemons that the state gave you and making lemonade.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-68991873887446599252011-01-27T09:35:26.849-05:002011-01-27T09:35:26.849-05:00@Anonymous: I’m very glad to know you find this w...@Anonymous: I’m very glad to know you find this work helpful. As I mention in my acknowledgement at the bottom of this post, I obtained the basic data (taxable market value and tax levy for Dutchess County for each year) from Dutchess County’s Real Property Tax Service Agency. From there, it’s trivial (conceptually, at least) to calculate percentage differences and tax rates. Needless to say, using a computer to do the math makes it all feasible. My main tool is Microsoft Excel®.<br /><br />It is also possible, but much more effort, to derive the Dutchess County taxable market values and tax levies by adding up the separate amounts from the two dozen jurisdictions (towns and cities) listed in the tax rate pamphlets. I’ve done that in the last few weeks, and the results agree very closely with those in this report.Bill Rubinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16139253202894399632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-79147423107566654212011-01-26T17:21:24.813-05:002011-01-26T17:21:24.813-05:00Hi Bill,
Thanks for offering your insights into t...Hi Bill,<br /><br />Thanks for offering your insights into this tax data - it certainly helps us layman make sense of it all.<br /><br />I was just curious regarding your figures - how did you put together all these data? Did you draw on some kind of online database, or was it all hard math adding up the figures for the different years?<br /><br />Please let us know if you could. Thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-63244585751710574142011-01-20T19:30:03.340-05:002011-01-20T19:30:03.340-05:00My reduction in county taxes was 2.7%. For the av...My reduction in county taxes was 2.7%. For the average reduction that you quote of 7.7% (assuming that's the residential number), the average homeowner would still have seen a decrease. Example, a homeowner with a $100K assessment in fiscal year 2010 with a tax rate of $2.833614 per thousand would have paid $283.36 (+ maybe a penny). That same "average" homeowner with a 7.7% reduction would have an assessment of $92.3K for fiscal year 2011. With a tax rate of $3.064031 per thousand, that taxpayer would be paying $282.81 this year. That is a decrease of about 0.2%. The tax rates I quoted are directly off my tax bills. By the way, I actually got lucky on fire - no change there. Town, not so good, just under 2% increase there. Back to the county - tax levy went down from 100,781,717 to 100,535,541. That's at least pretty good if not awesome as union benefits (specifically pension and health care expenses by the county) seem to continue to be increase greatly. I have to believe that more properties were added to the rolls than were taken off. If so, a smaller levy divided by the larger # of properties means the average taxpayer should see a decrease (unfortunately average doesn't mean everyone). Now I certainly can't argue that there have been years where taxes have gone up significantly, and believe me, I've been pretty upset with our state government for increasing mandates on the county while decreasing aid to the county. I think we need to applaud the county for reducing taxes (albeit by a small amount) when more burden is put on the county by the state.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-33911822405949894882011-01-16T09:56:56.862-05:002011-01-16T09:56:56.862-05:00@Anonymous: Your 10 percent reduction in assessed...@Anonymous: Your 10 percent reduction in assessed value is a bit more than the County's average reduction of 7.7 percent. That's why your 2011 County tax amount will go down even as the tax levy holds constant. Of course your Town tax, fire tax, etc. may be another story.Bill Rubinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16139253202894399632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8385941970577961249.post-82683369513276661292011-01-16T09:30:05.242-05:002011-01-16T09:30:05.242-05:00I'm not sure how the rest of the county is far...I'm not sure how the rest of the county is faring, but in 2010, after the 2010 tax bills were paid, my home in LaGrange had an automatic 10% reduction in assessed value, thus affecting 2011 and later. It only makes sense that if the entire county had a 10% reduction in value, that the rate per $1K has to increase to maintain tax levy at the 2010 level. In theory, an 11% increase in the tax rate would net no increase in tax liability to the homeowner. However, there have been additions and subtractions from the tax base that don't make this that simple. But, with the data that Mr. Rubin has in his table shows an 8.4% tax rate increase. If $3.07/$1K assessed holds true to be the 2011 rate, then my taxes will actually go down this year.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com