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Why are Property Taxes paid in arrears?


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Property taxes are not paid for services rendered in a prior year. While property taxes are indeed paid on a prior year's valuation, the purpose of property taxes is to fund the following year's operations. Thus, property taxes for the tax year 2008 are to fund the budgets of the cities, counties, school districts, etc., for the year 2009.
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Property taxes are not paid for services rendered in a prior year. While property taxes are indeed paid on a prior year's valuation, the purpose of property taxes is to fund the following year's operations. Thus, property taxes for the tax year 2008 are to fund the budgets of the cities, counties, school districts, etc., for the year 2009.

Thats cheating:p

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thank you, for some reason google didn't want to give me that answer, more like find the same question or questionsabout peoples problems paying them, lol.

 

I understand its to fund the following years budget, but how does that work when we don't even pay them completely until the year is half over? hope for even expenses throughout the year, or play catch up from an expensive first quarter/half with the 2nd halves property tax income?

 

For the 1st half of 2008 tax I pay it in Jan 2009, right?

And for the 2nd half of 2008, I pay it in June 2009, right?

 

Wouldn't the city/government prefer having all the money up front so that the ACTUALLY know what amount they are working with, rather than finding out 6-7 months into the year that they haven't/will not receive all the money they budgeted/planned on because of dead beats/foreclosures/whatever?

 

Why not have everything due by 12/31 of that year its for, as in 2009 taxes due in full by 12/31/09, in order to fund 2010 city operations?

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Ohio is 6 months in arrears. In arrears is basically paying at the end of. You pay your taxes at the end. Your paycheck is given to you in arrears, or after you've earned it. Why its set up in 6 month intervals, I have no idea. But I assume they want every increase that may come to them during the time frame so every 6 months they say during this time it was worth XXXXX so pay up.
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speaking of which, this reminded me to get all my stuff together to submit my dispute to the auditors office...when i went downtown, the woman said because i just bought the house and have 2 appraisals, i probably wont have to even go down for a hearing, and theres a 95% chance they'll agree with me and drop it. will be nice going from paying taxes on a property valued at 115k to 78k. little over $500/yr
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Wont that suck come resale time?

 

Doesn't really have any affect on it. A home will appraise at whatever it appraises at given the market, not based on anything to do with the auditor's value of it for tax purposes.

 

Case in point, I refinanced my house earlier this year and had to get an appraisal done, it came back at $189k, whereas my house is "valued" at $127k according to the auditors website because they froze tax values due to the housing market. I'm not complaining paying taxes on a house valued at only $127k when its really valued at $189k. Saves me money.

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well, im here for at least 3 years, unless i want to pay back my home buyers credit. hopefully by then, the market will go back up. im not worried about it right now, and i dont want to pay higher taxes than what my house is worth.

 

plus, i picked up my house at about the bottom of the market, so it can really only go up from then. i doubt it will drop lower in 3 years. and if it does, nothing i can do about it...ill just be in the same position people are in now.

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When I bought my house I looked at the estimated value, or appraisal. When you try and sell it, I assume if its valued at a lesser amount, it would be harder to get an asking price at similar or above your purchase price. If you payed $100,000, then had it re-appraised at $50,000. After a year you try and sell it but you are asking $105,000. As a buyer I am going top say wait a second, it was only appraised at $50,000 a year ago. What did they do to bring the value up $50k?
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When I bought my house I looked at the estimated value, or appraisal. When you try and sell it, I assume if its valued at a lesser amount, it would be harder to get an asking price at similar or above your purchase price. If you payed $100,000, then had it re-appraised at $50,000. After a year you try and sell it but you are asking $105,000. As a buyer I am going top say wait a second, it was only appraised at $50,000 a year ago. What did they do to bring the value up $50k?

 

and they could say "we waited out this shit market for values to go back up...but if you keep your mouth shut, you can keep the lower tax rate for a few years until they reassess the property"

 

the value of the home is only what you might/should get for it if it sells then. so naturally, in a shitty market, values are down. doesnt mean that the house you paid $200,000 for 5 years ago isn't a $200,000 house, it just means that the market is shit and no one is going to pay that for it right now

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and they could say "we waited out this shit market for values to go back up...but if you keep your mouth shut, you can keep the lower tax rate for a few years until they reassess the property"

 

the value of the home is only what you might/should get for it if it sells then. so naturally, in a shitty market, values are down. doesnt mean that the house you paid $200,000 for 5 years ago isn't a $200,000 house, it just means that the market is shit and no one is going to pay that for it right now

I would have a hard time buying a house for $200k if it only had an assessed value of alot less. Even if I thought it worth it, I looked closly to see what my house was valued at in case of resale and had an independent assesser look at it to help ensure the values matched. I dont know enough about realestate to know if the risk of having it valued less to save $ on taxes out weighs what it may do at resale time.

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