[RP TownTalk] Budget and taxation

[Rob Oppenheim]

Unfortunately, I believe that Vernon's tax change formula has an 
error in it. The higher tax rate applies to the entire assessment 
(and not just to the change in assessment).
 
If you have lived in your own home for at least a year, then
you can multiply the answer you got from Vern's instructions 
by 1.67 to get your actual change in Riverdale Park (RP) taxes 
 
So in Vern's own home example, multiply his $144 by 1.67 to 
get a $240 per year increase.
 
Correcting the amounts in Vern's survey yields:
"almost no owner occupied property saw more than a 
$25 per month [$300 per year] personal increase. The 
vast majority were below $22 per month [$264 per year]."
 
Most owner occupied homes will see an 18% increase in RP taxes 
next year (also state and county taxes will increase by various amounts).
 
Taxes will likely continue to go up roughly 10% each year until the 
phased-in assessment reaches the full value.
 
If you have not lived in your home for a year, then you will 
have to recalculate the change as described below. Unfortunately,
you will come up with a much bigger final number. 
 
The average increase across all properties is 27%.
Newly purchased homes (and non-owner occupied homes)
will be much higher than that.
 
----


(You can stop reading here, unless you want to recompute your expected increase.)
Below are corrected instructions for figuring out how your taxes will change.
 
How Will Your Taxes Change?
To see the change in your Riverdale Park real estate taxes (assuming 
the Council accepts Vern's proposed tax rates) proceed as follows:
 
1. go to
http://sdatcert3.resiusa.org/rp_rewrite/searchtype.asp?form%24=SelectCounty&county=17&SearchMethod=Street  
and enter your street address. [ Leave off the AVE or RD etc. ]
 
2. In the results, scroll down to the yellow line that reads "Value Information". 
 
3. If you have been in your own home for one year or more then 
look in the column "Phase-in Assessments As Of 07/01/2006" 
and get the "Total:" value (or use box 4 from the Assessment 
Notice that was mailed to you earlier this year), then
 
To see how much your RP taxes will increase,
multiply the above assessment value by 0.001147 
 
Or, to see your total RP Taxes for next year, 
multiply the above assessment value by 0.007557 
 
4. If you have not lived in your house for a year, or for property that is not 
your principal residence, or any property that is not owner occupied, then...
 
4.1 Multiply the 2006 total assessment value by 0.00641. Save the answer (call it OldTax)
4.2 Multiply the 2007 total assessment value by 0.00687 (call this NewTax)
4.3 Subtract the above two numbers to get the change in Riverdale Park taxes. (That is, compute NewTax - OldTax).
 
(I believe you use the "phase-in as of 7/1/2006" and the "phase-in as of 7/1/2007" 
total assessment values in the above steps, but I am not sure).
 
Please note that I am not an accountant, and the above may be wrong. Possibly very wrong.
 
------------
Footnote: You can ignore this footnote unless you want to see the math 
behind the formulas.
 
For homes that were owner occupied for at least one year, assessments are 
restricted to rise no more than 10% per year.
 
The formula for computing the tax change in such homes is AssessedValueFor2006 * 0.001147
This is a simplified version of (AssessedValueFor2006 * 1.1 / 100  * 0.687) - (AssessedValueFor2006 / 100 * 0.641)
Where 0.641 is the RP tax rate for 2006 and 0.687 is the proposed tax rate for 2007 expressed in dollars per 100 dollars of assessed value.
 
The formula for computing the total RP Tax for such owner occupied homes is AssessedValueFor2006 * 0.007557 
which is a simplified version of AssessedValueFor2006 * 1.1 / 100  * 0.687
 
[end]
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