Many homeowners think their property value alone determines how much property tax they pay, and that when the county assessor updates home values, their taxes go up. Neither assumption is true.
Property tax increases are not automatic, nor are they imposed by the county assessor. Instead, the high financial burden is imposed by elected state legislators and the local board and council members of Washington’s 39 counties, 281 cities and more than 1,400 other taxing districts.
Once elected officials in a taxing district decide the total dollar amount they want to get, the assessor apportions that amount among the district’s property owners, based on each parcel’s market value. It is a budget-based tax system, and that is the source of most of the confusion over who is responsible for raising property taxes.
Read Paul Guppy's latest op-ed in The Spokesman Review in full here!
