How do levies affect your taxes?
- Taxes affect all our lives and levies are the way many taxing districts choose to raise the money to support the services their taxpayers demand. Let's take a brief look at how levies operate.
Defining basic terms:
- Mill: A unit of measure, 1/1,000 milligram, milliliter, millimeter, etc. When talking about taxes, a mill is $1.00 in taxes for every $1,000 of assessed value.
- Assessed Value: In Ohio, the assessed value of real estate is 35% of the property's estimated market value.
- Market Value: The sale price of real estate as agreed upon between a willing buyer and a willing seller, with neither being under any duress to either buy or sell.
- Who sets the real estate market value? The county Auditor has the responsibility for determining the market value of all real estate in the county. The county Auditor then calculates the assessed value for each property.
How is market value determined?
- The county Auditor uses real estate sales in the county, specific property characteristics and statistical analysis to arrive at the market value for every property in the county. The market value is determined as of January 1st of the year of the assessment.
What happens when a tax levy is passed by the voters?
- Every levy ballot must contain language showing the year the levy commences (begins). For example, "...commencing tax year 2001"; taxpayers within the district where the levy's been approved will begin paying what they owe on the tax levy in the year of collection. The amount of millage they will pay ($1.00/$1,000 of assessed value of their real estate's value) is based on the amount of money the levy must collect.