State/County Taxes

We have some of our land in the Managed Forest Law program. There were (are?) two catagories of the program, one where you can let public onto the land (for a lower rate) and the other where it stays private. Ours is private (no hunting without permission) and the taxes per acre are still quite low compared to recreational use land.

Another thing that keeps our taxes low is all our land is agricultural use. The downside for us is we aren't farming it, we rent the land to a farmer who is planting conventional crops (corn, soybean, alfalfa) and therefore uses Roundup. I don't really like that but I can't afford the taxes otherwise. In the future, to keep taxes low I would like to use the land for some organic agricultural use or CRP. I need to do more research on the programs but I don't really like the idea (Government control). Because of taxes, we'll be forced into it probably.

One more thing we have going for us (for now) is we are living in a unfinished log "house". It is essentially the basement (with partial log walls) of what will someday be our log house with a main floor and a loft. The tax assessor deems it about 58% complete, which keeps our taxes low. We are determined to pay cash to complete our house, so it will stay unfinished for who knows how long. The downside is living in a 24 x 36 basement with bare concrete floors, the plus side is lower taxes

California has one of the best property tax systems in the nation, my opinion of course.

1% of value and they can only raise your property value a maximum of 2% a year thanks to prop 13.

So you buy a place for 200,000 and pay 2,000/yr. Property goes up 20% to 240,000 (not unusual lately) but they can only assess the property at 204,000 and you pay 2,040 in property taxes next year. When the house is sold and changes owners they reevaluate the property taxes for the new owner and start over with the current value. By the time I sold my house I was paying like .3% of the house value in property taxes per year.

I have always wondered why more states haven't tried to get similiar proposistions on the ballot. I couldn't imagine being on an open ended system, but will be in Colorado. If that was the case in California lots of people would of been taxed right out of their homes.

And one of the first things CA lost after Prop 13 passed was free community college education (except for books and small fees like for parking)....

They had to do something, but unless you buy in a really down market (which CA doesn't experience very often) you are essentially punished for moving. I think seniors have some amount of exemption that they can transfer to a new property if moving within the same county.

What I think would be nice is allowing you to improve your property without raising your taxes. Let the next owner get reassessed.

Fees for junior college are usually pretty cheap, $18 per unit here. I think it is only fair that the people who use the service, pay for it.

It may seem like you are punished for moving but I would rather have it the way it is then have the taxes just keep going up right with your house value so you aren't punished for moving. They do have a program for seniors so that if they move they can pay the amount of their old house and not the new one. My mother in law did this when she moved a couple years ago.

I agree, it would be nice not to pay more for improvements but other then major projects like house additions most people don't bother pulling permits.


If it wasn't for prop 13 my property taxes would of almost tripled in just 5-6 years.

People will debate the issues of what taxes are necessary and for what etc.until the cows come home ugh! I tend to agree the overall cost of living doesn't vary as much as one might think (city to city) except at the extremes. I think the thing that is often missed and certainly isn't taken into account on the tax or cost of living comparisons is how you personally live. If you are older and spend less because you have most things and know better than to want much others then a State that has no sales tax and picks up the slack with property tax is probably NOT for you. Find an area with high sales tax and low property tax. Some States do not tax food and medicine - others do. If you have a lot of cars, States with high licensing fees should be considered etc. In other words if you want to get serious about how to stretch and manage your dollars when looking for a place to live - be sure an consider your life style as it relates to these fees.

Ajoys, for a while it went up to $50 a unit for anyone who already had an AA or the equivalent amount of units--which really hurt anyone who was trying to upgrade their skill sets by going back to school, seniors who wanted to go back to school after retirement, and it hurt people who were going for degrees like nursing because degrees normally require a higher number of units.

It also hurt people who were getting VA payments (like under the old VEAP program)--because while the payouts at the time were covering the tuition (at that time $3/unit) plus books, etc., once the tuition went up that drastically (discriminatory, in my opinion, and I always wondered why there wasn't a class-action lawsuit over it, since all were paying property taxes) the payments from VA weren't adjusted, and a lot of people couldn't afford to go any longer. K-12 has suffered a lot as well.

Glad I have friends I can visit, because I can't honestly look at property there any more and say with a straight face that anything is a good value for the money, because it's not. And it's the triple whammy there--property, sales, and income taxes, and most of it goes to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

I long ago came to the conclusion that if you're poor you can live where you want, and if you're truly rich (as in you never have to ask how much anything is because it doesn't matter), you can live where you want. The middle class is the one that has to make the tough choices.

This is so true and it is getting harder and harder.