Help me understand property taxes in Pennsylvania

[Anonymous]

PA has an extra layer of government with the townships that you pay for. There are more services - each township having its own school system, nice facilities/playgrounds, etc. I live in a further out county in VA with lower rated schools, one small public pool for the whole county, no trash pickup, etc, but my property taxes are 1/4 of my parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Delaware also does not adjust

Which seems nuts, because of one day progressives take over and complain about equity, they could decide to reassess everything so that the tax base for property taxes would be modernized to make sure 'people pay their fair share'. It seems like a massive risk to move to states or areas where they don't constantly update their assessments. Assuming assessments will never go up is a gigantic gamble. One day you could wake up to a tax bill that quadruples due to some progressive pols getting aggressive. Your low tax bill is entirely predicated on politics never changing.

This is only an issue for people buying expensive homes, or who are lucky enough to buy a home that massively appreciates. Most people own homes worth way less so even if their tax bill triples or quadruples, their current taxes are so low that it would not even matter that much.

Also higher taxes are tied directly to city services. If your tax bill is going up to pay for the fantastic schools or great parks and amenities, well-- how else can they pay for those.

I am not going to sit around worrying about the possibility that my 500k house in a great area with wonderful schools might double in value and then "of no!" I'll gain a half million in equity in a place where it will be easy to sell because it's appealing to live there, and have to pay a tax my fraction of that equity in property taxes.

That is incredibly out of touch and incorrect. Most Americans would be financially burdened by a 2-4x increase in property taxes.