Quote:
Originally Posted by Biggd
It's actually both. Taxes are based on a per thousand assessment. So when values go up so do the assessments therefore razing taxes and if the rates go up also then so do taxes. In prosperous times they may both go up. We are assured of two things in life, death and taxes, even in the "live free or die state".
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Actually no. It's complicated, but rising property values do not raise your taxes, the tax rate is adjusted when valuations (notice the plural) rise to keep the levy (total amount raised by the town) at the same level as the year before PLUS any increases voted for during appropriations. So the increase in your taxes is only due to new spending approved by the politicians and town meeting if applicable, not the increase in valuation. Just like your taxes won't go down if there is a real estate market crash, they just adjust the tax rate up to keep the levy (and your tax bill) the same, or to add insult to injury, more, because they ALWAYS spend more.
Now if you do something to your house to increase its value, like an addition, your property tax will increase because of that because you increased the value of your house beyond what the market increase was for that period. But if everything stays the same and for some reason (that will never happen) the politicians don't vote to increase spending that year, your tax bill would not increase, even if everyone's assessed value went up 5%.
Politicians like it when people think their taxes are going up because of a hot market, it takes the heat off of them, but it's not true.
If you really want to understand it, you can read up here on it:
https://www.moultonboroughnh.gov/sit...ualv2-2014.pdf
Pay particular attention to the second paragraph in section 14.6 which pretty much summarizes what I just wrote.