Residents of the small Western New York village of Sloan had the highest effective property tax rate in New York, paying $64.46 per $1,000 of home value during 2014, according to the newest edition of Benchmarking NY, the Empire Center’s annual examination of local property taxes.
“There’s no question that New Yorkers pay some of the highest property taxes in the country, but the burden can vary widely even among neighboring jurisdictions,” said Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center. “By making it easier to compare taxes in different localities, we hope to encourage local taxpayers and elected officials to search for ways of reducing taxes and spending.”
The lowest effective tax rate in the state was $4.70 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 $589,100, 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 three villages–Old Field and Huntington Bay in Suffolk County and Piermont in Rockland County–had annual taxes exceeding $30,000. The lowest tax bill on a median-value home, $931, was found in the Hamilton County town of Arietta in the Raquette Lake school district, which does not operate schools and instead tuitions its fewer than five students in neighboring districts.
The highest and lowest rates and property taxes on a median-value home in each region can be found here: Capital Region, Central New York, Finger Lakes, Long Island (Suffolk County), Mid-Hudson, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Southern Tier, Western New York.
Users can see the components of their local property taxes and compare property taxes in multiple communities using the Empire Center’s Property Tax Calculator, a tool on SeeThroughNY.net, the Center’s transparency website.
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 2014, excluding only New York City and Nassau County. The complete report, posted here, includes a list of the top and bottom 20 effective tax rates and the top and bottom 20 tax bills on a locality’s median-value home in each of nine regions.
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 do business.