Wednesday, September 4, 2013

It's Your Money

Warning! This property tax series may put you to sleep.

During recent annexation discussions at recent city council meeting, a lack of property tax knowledge by most, if not all, participants became apparent and led to avoidable confusion.

I will attempt to share my knowledge in plain language, on this forum.

In Ohio most political subdivisions such as cites, counties, public schools and townships receive a significant portion of their operational revenue from taxes on property. Property tax is also called real estate or real property tax. All property taxes are collected by the county and distributed to the various local recipients. All of this revenue remains in the local area and is not shared with the state.

Schools and cities may also levy an income or earnings tax to supplement property tax revenue. Counties have the option of levying a sales tax in excess of the state sales tax.

Political subdivisions have the authority to levy some property taxes without the consent of the voters. However, this un-voted property tax, also know as inside milage, cannot exceed a total of 10 mills* Taxing districts, for example the City of Wilmington, Clinton County and Wilmington City schools are included in the 10 cap.
* one mill is equal to one dollar of taxes for each thousand dollars of taxable property value. (.001 X $1,000 = $1.00)

Current Inside mills for a Wilmington property owner:
2 mills (.002) City general operating fund.
.3 mills (.0003 Police pension fund.
.3 mills Fire pension fund.
3.00 mills County general operating fund.
4.2 mills Wilmington City Schools general operating fund.
9.8Total inside mills

A property owner in Union Township, Wilmington School District would pay 1 mill for Township operations and .2 mills for roads and bridges as well as the county and school inside levies. The total for Union Township is 8.4 mills.
End of inside mills section. The next installment will cover voter approved levies outside of the ten mill limit.

Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmal.com

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