Residents of the large Mid-Hudson village of Haverstraw had the highest effective property tax rate in New York (outside New York City and Nassau), paying $63.66 per $1,000 of home value during 2017, according to the newest edition of Benchmarking NY, the Empire Center’s annual examination of local property taxes.
The lowest effective tax rate in the state was $4.46 per $1,000, levied on homes and businesses in the Suffolk County town of Southampton falling within the Sagaponack school district. Southampton’s low rate reflects the town’s high property values: the median home price was $612,100, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.
In terms of total taxes on a home with the local median value, at least two villages–Old Field and Lloyd Harbor in Suffolk County–had annual taxes exceeding $35,000. The lowest tax bill on a median-value home was $1,010 in the Hamilton County town of Arietta in the Raquette Lake school district, which does not operate schools and instead pays tuition to send its fewer than five students to neighboring districts.
Benchmarking NY uses data from the state comptroller’s office to calculate effective tax rates–combined county, municipal and school taxes as a percent of market value–for thousands of localities across the state during 2017, excluding only New York City and Nassau County. The complete report lists the top and bottom 20 tax rates and tax bills on a locality’s median-value home in each of nine regions. The highest effective rate and highest tax bill on a median-value home in each region were found in the following communities:
Taxpayers can see the components of their local property taxes and compare taxes across the state using the Empire Center’s Property Tax Calculator on SeeThroughNY.net, the Center’s transparency website.
The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies to make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.
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