Two New Property Tax Reports from the MCFE

MCFE's 50 State Property Tax Comparison Report for Payable 2022, our annual national research investigation and publication developed in collaboration with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, is now available.

This annual report documents the wide range of property tax rates in more than 100 US cities and helps explain why they vary so widely.

The report highlights several key issues, with data for individual cities and analyses of nationwide trends:

• Taxes for non-homestead properties  -- From 2021 to 2022, the average effective property tax rate for the largest city in each state fell 1.4 percent for commercial properties,1.9 percent for industrial properties, and 0.4 percent for apartment buildings.
• Disparities in property taxes created by limits on annual growth in assessed values -- For example, for a median-valued home in Jacksonville (FL), a new homeowner faces an effective property tax rate 64 percent higher than an equally valued home purchased in 2010.
• Differences in property taxes between homesteads and other types of properties --  Among the largest cities in each state, commercial properties face an effective tax rate 83 percent higher than homesteads on average.
• Why property tax rates vary across cities -- This report includes data on four key factors that explain most of the variation in effective property tax rates: property tax reliance, property values, classification, and local government spending.
• How differences in property values mean some cities can have high tax bills despite low tax rates, and vice versa.

Also available is a new MCFE Issue Brief focusing more specifically on Minnesota findings and the state of state property taxation generally.