Taxes, taxes, taxes
It’s that time of year again, when every homeowner is dreading the envelopes they find in their mailbox.
That’s right, it’s time for property taxes. Today, the city released the details of the 2008 tax assessments for your home (or business).
As usual with city hall matters I was so early it wasn’t funny. I generally get started on my way to my second story around 8 a.m. I arrived at the municipal building today at 8:20 a.m. and didn’t have a thing to do until 10 a.m., when the news conference began. I’m not sure if you’ve ever decided to walk around city hall on your free time but there isn’t a lot to do.
After waiting around for an hour and forty minutes, the news conference finally kicked off. I was very interested in the explanation of how the property tax system works, but wasn’t prepared for a news conference that lasted a full hour.
Despite all the waiting, there was some good news. Nearly half of the homes in our city will see their property taxes decrease. My community is not one of them…in fact, if I lived across the street I’d be in a community with a tax that falls, which makes me grumble under my breath.
I’ll be honest with you — like many, I had no idea how these city mathematicians figure out how much we have to give them. Thankfully, after getting an hour of an explanation I dumbed it down into a paragraph.
Each year the city figures out what the average is of a rise in home values. For instance, this year, our property value rose 25 per cent across the city. Then, they look at how much your place rose and base the tax increase or decrease on that. If your house rose in value by 30 per cent you will see your taxes jump…but, if your condo only went up 15 per cent in value then we’ll get a tax break.
Make sense? I hope so. Before I go, I’ll let you know that we get a bonus this year. We don’t have to pay these taxes until June 30, so we have about six months to save up.