Next up, anti-tax protesters demand more services!

I see a graphic and a blockquote in which The Seattle Times mentions "the tax bill on a typical $453,300 house." My knowledge of assessments on properties within King County is that the house has an assessment value and the land has an assessment value for detached single family homes. In a mix of condominiums, apartment buildings and SFHs, someone with a "typical $453,300" house has a luxury condominium, or pricier land for a higher assessment.

I guess listing a typical composite assessment rather than the building value assessment would be disingenuous or too difficult for Seattle Times staff.

Thank you, dear Goldy, thank you.

Since you're on one of my favorite themes -- property tax in WA state, perhaps some time you could cover the unfairness of the covenants which restrict the rise in property tax for long time residents versus newcomers.

Property tax is what should be being used for the states mainstays such as "transit" instead of sales and income taxes and fees -- that fall harshly on the productive person, while letting the idle North Westerner live in splendor.

Supreme @4,

But we don't have those sort of covenants here. That's a California thing that our state constitution forbids.

#5.

Well, maybe you're right...I was thinking of the 1 percent limit, but that is for an overall tax increase, not on individual homes.

Still, I look at similar homes around this area in Zillow and Redfin and see wildly divergent tax rates.

According to this (http://dor.wa.gov/content/getaformorpubl…), Washington is somewhere in the middle when it comes to property taxes...however, they also demand premium Government services similar to high density Eastern states.

The insiders asking people to pay based on income or sales, while sitting on the larger tracts of land and assets is wrong in my opinion....

Q. How do property taxes stack up against personal income and taxes in other states?

Property taxes relative to income have varied over the years but over time have kept in line with personal incomes. In 2005, the most recent year for which national comparisons are available, Washingtonians paid $30.60 in property taxes per $1,000 of personal income. At that time, Washington ranked 28th highest among the states. In 1995, property taxes were $36.30 per $1,000 for a ranking of 24th highest. In 1985, they were $32.59 per $1,000 of personal income, or 24th-highest in national ranking. Thus, Washington usually ranks halfway between the highest and lowest states in property taxes relative to income.

Thank you for writing this story!

Just one bit that isn't quite accurate: "And if it does, you should be thrilled: it means your home is retaining its value better than your neighbors'"

It might be true in some instances that a change in tax-assessed value relative to your district is because of a real change in value of your home relative to your district (like if, say, condos are holding their value better than stand-alone homes, and yours is a condo), but not generally. Because the assessor's office doesn't frequently (only sometimes) come by, do a personal walk-through, and determine an accurate value for every home every year based on market trends, etc., a change in your assessed value relative to others in your district is more likely going to be due to any permits you filed for home improvements, or a determination that homes like yours (ex: homes in your neighborhood) were previously tax-assessed too low, and the assessor's office decided to raise them all.

There's no getting through to some people. I sent a link to the recent story about the Pierce County Transit tax increase failing at the polls to a conservative friend of mine what lives in Tacoma. I noted that the tax increase was miniscule, less than the cost of a latte.

My conservative friend replied "Yeah, that's too bad, but OUR TAXES ARE TOO HIGH!".

I followed up by asking about the increased costs my friend and other Pierce County residents will pay as those two hundred workers collect unemployment, food stamps, and so on. My conservative friend repeated that it was heartbreaking, but OUR TAXES ARE STILL TOO HIGH!"

Since my friend is also out of work, I asked whether my friend appreciates having two hundred more people competing for the jobs he is applying for. His reply (no surprise) "That's terrible, but OUR TAXES ARE STILL TOO HIGH!"

This happens all over the media, all the time - headlines, pictures and large-type excerpts say one thing (which is conservative) while the story says another thing to those who actually bother to read it (which is liberal). The reason is simple: the reporter who wrote the article is a reality based liberal, while the editor who arranged the presentation is a conservative who wants his taxes decreased, never mind who gets hurt.

@1, see Krugman's account of this:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02…

Those damn bureaucrats doing the things we gave them permission to do when we voted for them. Who would have ever guessed that property taxes help pay for the government, and that the government needs different amounts of money each year based on the problems we ask them to fix. It's almost like we setup some kind of percentage system, will the Seattle Times be explaining to everyone what a percentage is? I'm still so confused and just so angry that the people we agreed to pay taxes too keep taking them out every year. I thought this was a one time deal?