Sunday, October 31, 2010

Local property tax hikes getting a little extreme

Man alive, local property taxes in Austin are rising fast.

This year's tax bill just came in and the property taxes imposed overall for our 1,000-ish square foot house in central east Austin went up 16.3% over last year - most of it from the City (19.46%), the County (21.56%), and Austin ISD (13.75%).

On the back of the bill is a "tax history" from prior years. Before this recent hike, our tax bill went up 12.38% last year and 12.28% the year before, for a cumulative total of a 46.75% over the last three years. Couple that with rapidly rising water rates and planned electric rate hikes for the first time since the '90s, and local government - particularly the city and county - is pretty significantly jacking up the base cost of living in this town.

I don't mind paying for government services, but a 46.75% increase over three years during the worst economic crunch since the Great Depression seems like a little much.

2 comments:

Shilli said...

Has the appraised value of your house gone up? Mine has gone down every year since 2007 (and my tax bill has gone down along with it). The appraised value on my house is about 10% higher than it was in 2006, and my tax bill is about the same as it was then (the school district tax rate went down substantially from 2006-07).

Audrey said...

With this kind of economy, it has to be the tax rates that are going up, surely they are not increasing your property value? Property values have got to be plummeting (or standing still) in light of all the foreclosures of the past 4 years. UNLESS, your area in Austin is the exception??? I'd sure be protesting the increases...you know you can do that? That's outrageous!