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Originally Posted by JPC
Here is a question for you. If, and this is just hypothetical, the tax rate stayed the same as last year (i.e. no gov. growth) but your assesment increased because of the view or a new development next to you. Doesn't your property tax go up?
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Remember, the tax rate is set after the full valuation of the town is divided by how much revenue the town needs to raise.
Now, if in your case the tax rate per thousand remained the same, but your valuation went up...you indeed would be paying more in taxes. However, because the amount of money that needed to be raised, the whole pie as it were, remained the same size then you paid for a bigger portion of the pie. Someone, or a number of other people in that town, had their valuations go down and therefore paid for a smaller portion of the pie. The pie did not get bigger because of your example, only the portion of it paid by you grew.
In reality the pie (government spending) gets bigger every year. And the valuation of the town/city nrever remains the same either. What was happening in New Hampshire was that some communities, Dover for example, adjusted their valuation every year. Other communities, like Keene, would go on forever using an old evaluation. This caused extreme disparity in valuation from community to community, negatively influencing some of the factors used to determine the educational formula that declared a town either a donor or receiver community in reference to state aid to education.
Anyway, some people are seeing the actual valuation of their property finally being calculated into their tax bill, and its not a pretty sight!
The thing to remeber is that the greatest factor that drives your tax bill is how much your community is spending, followed by the economic tax base of your community (mainly residential properties versus available commercial properties) not the value of your property! Most people make the mistake of blaming the assessor when who they really need to be holding accountable is their town selectmen or town/city council!
Happy Thanksgiving,
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