kudzu, that's a good middle ground view, laying the emotions of getting yet another tax increase aside. You are certainly right in that my taxes would certainly have gone up during the 14 years I have been here and the county even got in trouble from the state for not doing a good job valuing homes. My house was valued well below market value when I bought it. My primary gripe is centered around the fact that a home owner pays state and local taxes and supports local businesses when he improves his property and he probably pays additional fees to get permits from the county to make the improvements. I added a big 24'X32" detached garage and even had to get a building permit living well outside the city limits. The county didn't lift a finger to help me build my garage, nor did it co-sign a note to finance it but now all of my hard work and support of community businesses is rewarded by additional taxes. That's why I referred to my property taxes as home improvement fines. Am I emotional now because I just got my tax estimate? You bet, admittedly so, but the fact remains that I'm being fined for improving my property...

Well county does provide you with 911 and other services to protect your investment, plow roads and provide parks and trails and other quality of life stuff... cities with police and fire. Just to say its not totally going into a black hole though yep its a royal PITA sometimes what they choose to spend it on.

One advantage of DIY is you can break things down over a longer period of time into smaller tasks that fall under category of "repair" and thereby not have to take out a permit .... not tax evasion exactly, just being strategic. Of course with some things there's no getting around it & its to your advantage if it protects you by reviewing the quality of the work done.,

I can not conceive of living in an apartment---I have done so, but that was a very long ago time. Since tents and caves are also out, that leaves me with living in a house.

Since I abhor cookie cutter housing additions, I want my house to fit us and our lifestyle. That means every house I owned will have changes made, for our comfort or enjoyment.

I now live in the county in Kansas with the highest property tax base. It is also the smallest county in area with the fourth highest population density.

We bought this house as a foreclosure, knowing it needed a lot of work----meaning improvements. All the lighting and plumbing fixtures have been replaced, the water heater replaced, the water softener replaced, painted inside, crown molding installed, pergola removed and a patio cover installed----none of those improvements had any effect on property taxes, but have increased our enjoyment.

Property taxes pay for a ton of services, to include schools. As the cost or addition in number of those services increases, so must the tax base.

Put it this way. We built a new house in 1978 in this county. We did very few improvements, yet the property taxes increased every year.

Uh oh, someone mentioned how county taxes fund the schools :>)

On to rant #2!

Over half of my $1,923.60 tax bill this year will go to the school. I have never had kids, am single and have no plans to have kids....and I was home educated and never spent a day in the public school system. Aside from the fact that public school is broken and spends far too much money on buildings, red tape, and administration, and not enough on teacher salaries, I object to paying $1,178 each year to fund something that's not my choice and not my responsibility. We digress away from home improvement now but therein lies another huge issue I have with my ever-increasing tax burden. I'm seriously wondering if I should find out how much tax one of my out buildings adds. If it's significant, I would seriously consider getting rid of it. I feel like I have zero control short of tearing down my garage but I would remove/tear down the out building if it would cut off $50 - $100. Cutting off my nose to spite my face? Maybe, but it would sure make me feel better.

Well, somebody's kids use the schools and if there weren't any, kids or schools for them, just exactly who is going to become the doctors and nurses to care for you when needed, who's going to fly the airplanes so you can travel, who's going to build the bridges and engineer public works that you use? I'm totally willing to pay to put other people's kids through school (including college if they need help) and think it's shameful that schools are at the bottom of the funding pool instead of first in line for our tax money.

I understand about the waste, I really do. But I have to agree with Olychick. We all pay for many things in the community we never personally use (like I never intend to go to jail). I don't have children either. I would rather pay for education than expanding the jail. I like having clean streets everywhere, not just on my street. I like parks, but only go to the one close to my house. It's a small price to pay and I am glad to do my part.

I agree with Olychick and Cooper. The social contract is that the price of living in a relatively safe, clean, and civilized society is that we agree to be taxed and we supposedly elect wise politicians to spend the money properly. If we all could pay taxes only for the things we were in favor of and personally benefited from, then we would have chaos, dysfunction, and possible anarchy.

I've never agreed with all of the places my local, State, and Federal taxes went, but that's the cost of living in a democracy. My children benefited from public school, and, now that they are grown, I'm happy to pay to educate other people's children; I would feel the same way even if I had never had kids because we need an educated society. I've never had to use the fire department, but I'm glad when it saves somebody else's house. I don't use the library as much as I used to, but I am pleased with the contribution it makes to my community. On the other hand, while I recognize the need for a strong military, I'm not always pleased when another bomb I have helped pay for gets dropped for a dubious purpose....but that's something I have to accept to live under our form of government.

When I moved about 12 years ago, I bought a house that was about the same price as the one I sold, and moved to another suburb about 10 miles away. Moving to that similarly priced house in a different community more than doubled my real estate taxes, but I accepted that because I wanted to live in the new location, could afford the tax burden, and recognized that the new community I was in had greater and different tax needs than my old one. It sometimes feels like a bit of a stretch when I pay those taxes, but I like my community, I like my house, and I would not give up these amenities or remove a building off my property to try to reduce taxes. If one is really troubled by one's property tax burden, the best approach is to get proactive and politically involved rather than to do things that ultimately only hurt oneself.

People in my county finally got together and changed the political machine into a system that now gets awards for transparency, holding the line on those higher than any other county in Kansas property taxes. AND---while doing all that, they increased services.

The key is people getting involved and staying involved.

I'm just giggling at the concept of such a tiny tax bill.

John, if you hate the convenience of living in a civilized society, then go get a shack up in the Alaska wilderness.

Or you could go join the folks in the middle east, would probably prefer paying taxes and being safe.

You could think of your tax dollars going to schools as you doing good for society. Yes there is some waste but not all of it is wasted. Everything has a budget.

Also, you do home improvements so you are more comfortable and enjoy your citadel. Often, taxes are based off of the footprint (size) of your building(s). So yes if you did an addition that makes your house or garage take up more land your taxes may go up. If you had an unfinished basement and finished it, that wouldn't increase the footprint and you probably wouldn't see taxes go up.

I get what John9A is saying, you improve your property and get taxed for doing so! It is a Catch22. The neighbor could let his house run down, become an eyesore, and his/her property taxes gown down.. I had a customer that owned some very expensive property in a swanky part of L.A. Over the years he complained about everything, taxes, fees, permits, etc..I often thought just sell the place, cash in, retire in style? He was late paying on of my bills, he was never late, so I called to see what was up. He was dead......He would gladly pay any bill now, but he can't......

The concept of paying taxes to help fund community needs isn't a sore spot for me. wacokid got it right when he recognized my point that it's unfair when the lazy homeowner lets his place go and the property value decreases and so does the tax bill. Other home values and the neighborhood in general suffer too. I keep my place up and even add on, increasing my home's value and my neighbor's homes are benefited as well. The county didn't lift a finger to help, quite to the contrary, they charged me a fee and required a permit for me to add three walls to a carport that was already roofed and had a slab under it.

Some have pointed out that I am getting the added comfort from the improvements I have made and that's true but my point has been that the county did nothing to help and in fact hindered me and now it get's the benefit of the added value I worked hard for. I get no additional services from the county and they are charging me again and again for products I already bought and paid for and installed with my own time and hard work. Maybe it would make more sense to re-evaluate the taxable value when the next buyer appraises and purchases the home but, for the life of me, I just feel taken advantage of.

I have done 90% of the work myself so maybe it's the sweat and time I invested that makes me resent so much the county laying claim to my efforts.

it's unfair when the lazy homeowner lets his place go and the property value decreases and so does the tax bill. Other home values and the neighborhood in general suffer too.

If surrounding homes also get devalued, then by your logic your lazy neighbor is causing your taxes to go down! What a great guy! You should probably help pay some of his taxes since he's helping you out without you having to do anything! Or is it only a problem when it costs you money and not when you benefit? :)

I understand what you are saying, but by the same token, you worked hard (I assume) and purchased a house. The county taxes the home because it's one way they've figured is pretty easy to value and collect taxes from all property owners -to help run the gov't.

The county didn't help you buy the house, in fact they hindered it in some ways because it had to be up to code, there were probably some sales or real estate taxes paid on the transaction. So they also benefited just because you bought a house. Same if you pay local sales tax on items with money you worked hard for; or car license fees....the gov't didn't help you with any of those things, but they (we) all benefited from your hard work to make those purchases. Oh, and YOU benefited from my hard work, too.

greg, I think the issue is more about me being taxed extra because I worked and it's doubly unfair because I get no relative increase in services from the county and most of the money goes to the school district to pay for a broken system I have never and will never use. Oddly enough, I live just a mile south of a county with a much lower tax rate. Somehow, those folks up there are doing just fine.

If you leave your house alone, you pay the same taxes with changes based on inflation. If you should be tempted to support the local merchants and contractors and pay local sales taxes, shame on you! You will have to get a permit and you will be fined each year thereafter at a rate proportional to your efforts!

Thanks for allowing me to rant a bit here :>) I know taxes are a necessary evil and y'all have made some good points and gave me some other angles to think about. The unequitable part of my tax bill is the part that penalizes me for my home improvements....no added benefits to me from the county and it penalizes me for something that should be encouraged.

john-

One last thought...how would you feel if you had just bought the house that you are in today but someone else had made the improvements? The taxes would still be the same, but no one would be taxing or "penalizing" your work: there would simply be a tax bill based on the value of the house. It's the same as when you first bought it, and the tax bill was less because the house was worth less. I bet you didn't think at the time that somebody built the home, didn't get help from the county, and was penalized for erecting it.

kudzu9, I actually think that would be a muuuuch better way to tax a piece of property. The taxable value should only change due to inflation and at the time of sale/purchase. The original owner doesn't get penalized for improving his property and the new owner is taxed on the basis of the real value at the time of the sale.

Your home schooling is showing. Musta skipped civics a lot. It ain't all about you.

Sophie, my home schooling taught me to think and to ask questions and it taught me not to depend on others for my well being. It also taught me manners and civility.

I, too, find property taxes irritating. I don't think they should go up for doing things that are basically repairs--a new roof, new windows, new heating or ac, etc. Things break or wear out and I think that property owners should be able to replace or repair things without a tax increase. I also don't think taxes should increase when you do repairs or improvements that save energy (e.g. add double paned windows). I think we should encourage home ownership instead of taxing it so heavily. I think we should encourage property maintenance and improvement.

On the other hand, I do enjoy many benefits of living in a civilized society and I don't mind paying my fair share of taxes. I don't have children, but I don't mind paying taxes to educate kids. It's much better to pay for education vs jail or welfare, I think. Our society benefits greatly due to the fact that we pay to educate our children.

Some people like to say that "our public school system is broken." It's been said so much by certain groups of people that it's increasingly seen as an accepted fact. But, repeating something over and over doesn't actually make it true. Unfortunately, though, it does seem to convince more and more people over time, making it an effective strategy to convince people that something is true when it's not. The mantra that "our pubic schools are broken" has a lot more political motivations behind it than truth.

I disagree that our pubic schools are broken. I think that our pubic schools, overall, do an excellent job of educating a very diverse population of children, including many with learning disabilities. I don't think that any other school system, anywhere else on earth, has to educate such a diverse population of students. Sure, not everything is perfect everywhere or for every child and some schools need improvement, but, expecting perfection is kind of unrealistic, in my opinion.

The majority of people in the U.S. are educated in our public schools. Most of the people in our excellent colleges are also products of our pubic school system. We have one of the most educated populations on earth, while also having one of the most diverse populations of children to educate. I think that our schools are doing a pretty good job. We certainly have some societal problems, but you cannot expect schools to fix these. That's not the job of our school system.

If you never used the pubic schools and you never had kids who used them, then I'm a bit confused as to how you've come to the conclusion that our pubic schools are "broken."

veggiegardnr-

I agree with your observations about public schools. No type of school system is perfect, but the public schools aren't broken. What's broken is a political system that has brought us far from the truth with "alternate facts" and no longer seeks to fix problems through compromises.

Maintenance and repairs don't increase property taxes (at least anywhere that I've lived). Maintenance and repairs are expected and they just maintain the property value.

It's improvements to property that increases taxes.

Let me clarify a few things. First, maintenance and repairs maintain the value of a home and don't necessarily increase the value or the tax rate. In the absence of maintenance and repairs, the value of a home can go down and one could show the county it's no longer worth the appraised value and have ones taxes reduced accordingly. That wasn't the point of my post but there it is since it has come up. My gripe has to do with improvements and my garage addition is a perfect example.

Second, I do have a lot of insight into the public school system and I don't say the public school system is broken just as an offhand point with no basis. I have several relatives in my immediate family who have taught in the public school system, a relative who taught elementary teachers at the college level for many years, dated a public school teacher, dated a public school administrator, and I worked directly with a coworker for five years who previously taught public school. I also have siblings who teach at the college level who also know first hand as they teach remedial level courses to college students who were passed through the elementary school system without being able to perform basic math skills. I think most of the problems in the public school system can ultimately be traced directly to the parents who don't do their parts at home, who file lawsuits against the school districts, who essentially use the school system as a baby sitter, who won't allow teachers to discipline their kids, who have worked the system and demand their child to be passed through with or without an education, and who demand that the school be responsible for feeding their child. Lots of kids learn about drugs, smoking tobacco, sex, and 101 ways to cheat, from their classmates in grade school. I was encouraged to become an elementary teacher if I truly wanted to be a teacher but warned I would join a group who is constantly dealing with all manner of headaches brought on by parents and the school administration. I applaud our elementary school teachers who will put up with all of this to do what they love, but the system is broken.

I guess it depends on how you define maintenance and repairs vs improvements. In some places, things like a new roof or new water heater are considered improvements and your property tax will increase. I would, personally, consider those maintenance/repairs. Where I live, a new water heater isn't considered an improvement. I was pretty surprised when a friend, who lives elsewhere, told me that her property taxes increase every time she does anything that requires a permit, including every time she has to replace her water heater. A lot more things also require permits where she lives vs where I live.

John...you do realize that you are taking about societal problems and placing blame on the pubic school system for those problems? The schools are not broken, they have an "input problem." By this, I mean they have to deal with children coming into the schools with problems related to their home environments/parents, etc. You can only expect them to do so much. Our schools typically do a really good job of educating students who are willing and ready to learn and who have a home environment that encourages learning and education. You can't expect the schools to fix our societal problems.

veggiegardnr, I hope areas that consider a water heater replacement in the figuring of county taxes is an outlier and not the norm!

I totally agree with you that the schools can't fix societal problems. I think the schools can certainly aggravate them and extend them though. Societal problems would include drugs. Schools don't cause drug problems but they are an environment where kids are coerced through peer pressure to try them, same thing with sex and tobacco products. Those are parts of why I say the public education system is broken, but just additional straws on the proverbial camel's back. The real load is things like teaching tests rather than teaching kids how to learn, not being able to discipline kids who need it, a system that puts kids on a bus for hours a day, and, a biggie, being required to pass a student through even if they don't master the material.

Yea.. I dont get how water heater replacement has anything to do with taxes... boggles the mind...

Excessive bureaucracy at its finest...

I agree with greg...I've never lived in an area where property taxes go up because you do maintenance, even if it requires a permit. However, property taxes do fluctuate: it can be due to a rising (or falling) market, a revision of the assessor's methodology, or a change in the tax levy. Often, I suspect, an increase might be mistaken by an owner as related to recent maintenance work when, in fact, there is no connection. I've lived in my current house for 12 years and have seen my property taxes fluctuate by about $3000 per year over that time...sometimes they go up and sometimes they go down. Right now I'm paying just about the same amount of property tax as when I bought the place, and the fluctuations have no correlation with the modest changes I've made to the house. In fact, the market value of my house is about 50% higher than what I paid for it due to a rising market; so, in real terms I should be pleased, I guess, since the tax levy per $1000 of assessed value has gone down substantially!

I agree with everyone who says that doing something like replacing a water heater would be repair/maintenance vs new construction, yet my friend absolutely insists that she's completely certain that her taxes have gone up twice, due to water heater replacement. If she's actually right, I think that, maybe, the tax assessor there is being quite liberal (inappropriately) with what he's calling new construction. She's in CA, so property taxes don't go up and down like they might in other states, due to Prop. 13.

Anyway, so far as the original topic of this thread... Like I said, I don't mind paying my fair share of taxes, but, I can totally understand what the OP was getting at when asking why one would do home improvements that would lead to a higher property tax bill. I actually avoid doing things that would increase my property taxes and I know I'm not alone. I think it's pretty common.

The thing is that we pay thousands of dollars every year in property taxes already. It's a big bill and it's a bill that's never going away and it's also a bill that's pretty certain to increase over the long term. It's not a bill that you can ever pay off. Though retirement is a way off for us, I think that I don't want to end up paying an unnecessarily large property tax bill during retirement. Property taxes also factor into my thinking that we would be best to remain in our current home, though we'd both like to have a home with a larger lot.

We also live in CA, so Prop. 13 prevents property taxes from skyrocketing (for the house you currently live in) when housing prices increase. We bought our current home about 5 years ago. Home prices have pretty much doubled since then. If we moved, today, just a few doors down the street, to the exact same house as we have now, our property taxes would basically double. So, I guess I feel a bit stuck in my current home and, honestly, we'll stay here vs moving to a house with a larger lot (unless home prices decrease dramatically). If I can avoid it, I'm also not going to be doing anything here that would lead to a property tax increase. I might feel differently if we didn't already pay so much in property taxes.

veggiegardnr-

Two points:

1. It sounds like your friend is convinced that her her tax bill went up based on water heater replacement, but that may be a supposition rather than a fact. While anything is possible, I believe it's at least as likely that there are other factors at play. Besides, given how relatively trivial the cost of a water heater is in comparison tho the value of a house, I would be surprised if the tax assessment changed in any significant way even if this maintenance item was taken into account by the assessor's office. And let's look at a full cycle: You have a water heater, it gets old, and you replace it with another water heater. How does that change the value? If you say, well, the new water heater is more valuable, then I'll say, well, then it will depreciate each year and your tax bill should be going down each year that it ages until it is replaced (all other things being equal). That's why I'm not convinced that your friend has all the facts.

2. If you are concerned about real estate taxes in retirement, many states, including California, have programs that provide tax relief or deferment to retired people whose income is under a certain amount. These vary from state-to-state, with some being more "generous" than others. You might want to Google this to see how it might affect your situation in the future.

kudzu-

1. I agree with much of what you wrote. But... I haven't seen her tax bill. She keeps very close tabs on her bills, taxes, etc. I expect that she knows more about her bills than I do. She bought the house about 19 years ago, so its assessed value for tax purposes is very low compared to what it would be if she bought the home today. So, small increases are more noticeable on a smaller bill.

2. I have no reason to think that my income will be under any amount that would allow me to have any sort of tax relief in retirement. We are not low income now and expect to have a reasonable amount of income in retirement. We are also many years away from retiring. What I was trying to say is that it seems prudent to take measures so that we do not end up paying massive amounts of property taxes, now or in retirement. To give you an idea of what property taxes in my area run... It's pretty common around here for people with normal-sized homes (around 2500 sq ft) to pay $800-1000/month in property taxes. Go 30 minutes north and we know people paying around $800/month in taxes on a 1700 sq ft home that they recently purchased. We have friends, who live a bit further north than that, who are paying about $2000/month in property taxes on their 3 br, 3 br, 2500 sq ft home that they purchased several years ago. Property taxes can be a huge burden around here, due to high property values. We can easily afford to pay our property taxes now and it is our intention to keep that bill to a level where it's not a burden. It seems like the prudent thing to do and most people around here would agree with me on that.

veggiegardnr-

I'm in the same boat: the taxes in my area (Greater Seattle) are in the ranges you describe. We do, however, have the advantage of no State income taxes. I guess I just accept the fact that, if there is no income tax, the money has to come from other sources of revenue...like higher property taxes and higher sales taxes. I like the services my government provides, so, while my property taxes are pretty breathtaking, it's what I accept as the price of living in the community I prefer. It's why I didn't move after retirement to some little burg where the taxes are much lower but the services and amenities may not match my expectations.

I've heard about your property taxes up there. Ouch. I also like to have a certain level of services where I live. I don't mind paying taxes for services, but I'd have to be a bit foolish, I think, to just decide to at least double my property tax bill (forever!) just because I'd like to move to a house with a bigger yard. If I really didn't like my house, I suppose I might move, but... I'd rather hold on to my money. I'm a saver, not a spender. :) I do think that keeping property taxes down is a pretty motivating factor for a lot of people, myself included. We also know a couple of families who considered adding on to their homes and decided not to do that because of how much their taxes would increase.

We like to remodel, but, whenever possible, we avoid doing things that require building permits. We'll get a permit when we need to (in order to repair something that needs repair) but we don't voluntarily do things that require permits. So, for example, even though I'd like to add a balcony outside the master bedroom, I'm probably never going to do that. Things like new floors, new kitchen cabinets/counters, new bathroom finishes, etc...those are a definite yes (no permit required).

taxes of 800-1000 per month? must live in San Fran...

the place where you make 80k a year and have to have roomies to afford your studio apt.

where I live (small rural town), taxes are about that price PER YEAR. So if you want to retire cheap, which a lot do, they move small rural and pay dirt cheap on taxes, plant a garden, watch the birds, etc.

vith-

Not just San Francisco....

I'm not in SF. I cannot even imagine how much I'd be paying in property taxes for my same house there.

I too have watched my property tax bill go up from about $900 when I bought my house in 1991, to $1900 today. Only a fraction of that is inflation. In fact I ran the OP's numbers through an inflation calculator, and $652 14 years ago is $877 today based on the Consumer Price Index. But what others have said is true, the value goes up when you improve the house, maybe other houses in the neighborhood have increased in value so yours has too just by association, and overall the housing market does not always match the CPI anyway. We still hate to pay taxes! I don't have kids in the schools and most of my property tax bill goes to the schools.

BUT I also agree with what the others have said about the social contract, the value of things like schools that we may not use individually but benefit the whole community, and about getting involved if you don't like how money is spent. It is of course a lot more time consuming to attend school board meetings than it is to complain, so we do a lot more complaining. :-]

Just be thankful you live in a place where taxes and elections are relatively transparent, you can speak out, vote freely, and at least you don't have to bribe local officials to get along. AND you have enough money to own property. That puts you in a small percentage of the world's population.

This thread has made me do some thinking about property taxes, in general. I agree that taxes are important and necessary if we want to live in a civilized society. But, I guess property taxes bother me for a couple of reasons. One reason is that that can be quite a burden; they can be quite high, depending on where you live and not everyone has the ability to just move somewhere else, where they might be lower. Another reason is that they are a tax on shelter, which I consider to be a basic human necessity (you also cannot avoid paying if you rent, because the landlord passes that cost to tenants). I don't mind paying taxes. I agree that they are necessary. But, taxing a basic human necessity seems wrong, imo, especially when the bill can be so high.

veggiegardnr-

I pretty much agree with those thoughts. I bought my first house several decades ago; at the time the cost of the house was about twice my annual salary...and it was a nice, middle class house. The last house I bought was about eight times my salary (and almost 20 times what that first house cost!); it was nicer than my first house, but not spectacularly so. The only reason I could afford to move into my current house, was the huge amount of equity I had acquired through living in the previous house for many years. I don't believe property taxes used to be such a problem for individual homeowners. However, because houses have far outstripped inflation in terms of market valuation, those taxes have risen out of proportion to people's earning power. Unfortunately, it's tempting to governments to look to property taxes for sources of revenue because rising market value means not having to pass new taxes in many cases. I agree that the tax revenue has to come from somewhere, but increasingly relying on property taxes to provide that revenue is hard on some groups, particularly those on fixed incomes, like retired people.

A county should be required to justify its current level of taxation. Some posters here have accurately stated that taxes (or other form of revenue) are required to achieve a certain level of civilization. Folks have also voiced support for funding the education of our next generation. While I agree with those positions as basic truths, I don't believe the basic truth of them can be extrapolated out beyond some point where the county is using the revenue for things that don't provide a cost-worthy benefit to those who are taxed. The reason I want to make this note is because I think we have passed that point in many areas. While my area is very much lower in taxes than some, my cost of living and salary base is also lower so it may be much more comparable than it would appear on the surface. At some basic level, taxation is needed to pay for county drainage, maintenance of county streets, and the local school district (if, a big if in my very single-non-parent case, one assumes general tax revenue should pay for elementary education). Is it OK to increase county taxes to pay for limo-style school buses? Most would say that's extravagant and goes well beyond what's reasonable or needed. I would argue that the same goes for requiring the local taxpayers to pay for educating the four (even five or six) kids lots of families choose to put through school. At some point, parents should be responsible for the costs of raising their own children. My parents scrimped and saved so one parent could be a full time parent and home-schooler while the other worked to fund the household....four of us kids. Seeing that worked, I would personally argue that it does not take taxation to fund a local school district in order to have a good education for our kids. Now, with home school groups who can share different areas of expertise and teaching abilities, it's even easier now to properly educate kids outside of the public school system. I see tax funds wasted in my county to build a generally mocked amphitheater that is seldom used, wasted on horribly planned intersections, wasted on consulting for pet projects for which there is no general consensus, and wasted on huge school improvement projects that don't improve the quality of the kid's educations. It's disheartening to see the profit I should be able to realize through renovating and enlarging my home be eaten up each time I mail a check to the county and even worse to know I get no benefit from over half that check. See, it's been three weeks since I got my tax statement and I'm still mad :>)

john-

You're laying out the dilemma of representative government. In our political system, we elect people that we hope will carry out policies that we will agree with. The alternative, which is not realistically possible these days, is where we have a pure democracy, which means each citizen has a voice and a vote in every decision. It might have worked in Athens a couple of thousand years ago, but wouldn't today, particularly because, despite citizen dissatisfaction, most people don't have the time or knowledge or longterm interest to participate.

I understand your points and your dissatisfaction with some of the ways your tax dollars are spent. And being mad is also understandable, but, unless you channel it into specific, concrete action, you will only continue to be frustrated.

If one is unhappy with the status quo, you can: 1) be more active in the political system by participating in forums, hearings, and campaigns; 2) sponsor referendums, and/or 3) run for political office yourself. Short of that, you're simply causing yourself unproductive and unhealthy upset.

kudzu, I generally agree with you but I have also stated my case here and may not effect a change in my area but maybe spawned some deeper thought on the topic that may move others to also question if their taxes are also not going to the best services. I have also gotten some good feedback and some folks here asked some good questions to help parse out the primary concerns from the overall tax bill.

To try and wrap this one up one more time...surprised there was as much interest in the topic and thanks for everyone's input....I called the tax assessor's office and spoke with an assessor. Turns out they can send a summary sheet that itemizes each asset, how it's classified, and the assessed values of each. Turns out there was a minor error we corrected and that will reduce my tax some. I expect the county could just as easily find ways to increase my assessment if they were hard-nosed, which I'm quite sure they aren't. So, I still believe it's a bad law that penalizes homeowners for adding on a garage and I REALLY resent that over half my bill goes to a system I believe is horribly inefficient and failing at it mission, but I do feel better now that I exercised my privilege to review how my property value was developed and worked with the assessor to resolve a minor miscalculation. For those who might wonder what the change we made was, oddly enough, a percentage factor is used to calculate square footage of upstairs living space. It was more accurate to just calculate the upstairs area based on bottom floor dimensions which the county has on a diagram. I assume the percentage estimator is used for more complex floor designs but in my case it was developing a square footage for the second story that was higher than the rooms directly under the second story. So, as kudzu said, pay your taxes or go change the laws if you don't like them. I'll add, that we do need to recognize the assessors are probably just following the law so change the law if you want but don't harass the assessor unless you know for a fact they are willfully going beyond the law. There are lots of thankless jobs people work in and I'll bet that's one of the worst to handle.

john-

Good news that you got some adjustment. I agree that most assessors don't have an axe to grind...they're just doing a complicated job. In my area -- and I assume most localities -- you get notification of the right to appeal the valuation each year after you get the notice. However, for an appeal to succeed, you need to have hard facts or discover an error, just like you did; simply telling the assessor that you think your taxes are too high isn't a successful strategy ;-)

When you added a garage, you increased the value and amount of property which a fire department would be saving in case of a fire. Similarly, you are increasing the value which is preserved when the police prevent burglars. Just as your homeowners insurance went up when increasing the replacement cost of your dwelling.

Also, when you increase your income through your hard work, you similarly pay more in taxes. Again, generally speaking, the services that government provides in making for a safe, productive society are worth more financially speaking to the person making $200k a year than the one making $50k a year.

I moved to SC. From California. My property tax here is approx $200. For an entire year. Granted, I live in a small town home. But $200 is manageable.

Louise-

How much was it in California (for what I assume is a similar home)?

I believe around $5000 year 4 bedroom home. But we bought years ago. So Prop 13 kept it low. It was sold for $900,000 (obscene in my opinion) I am sure the taxes for it now are ridiculous. I bought this townhome for cash. Under $100,000. Divorce is never easy. At least I have a place that is all mine.