1 Comparing the Assessment Rates of the Poor and Rich

One of the more effective metrics to compare assessments across jurisdictions is the 95-05 Assessment Percentage. This metric is calculated by taking the average rate at which the top decile of sales is assessed and comparing it to the average rate at which the bottom decile of sales is assessed. A 95-05 Assessment Percentage of 1 means thats the top decile is assessed at the same rate as the bottom decile. A 95-05 Assessment Percentage of 0.8 shows that the rich are assessed at only 80% of the rate at which the poor are, suggesting that a given property tax system is regressive.

1.1 Nationwide Distributions

1.1.1 Binned Scatter by Year

1.1.2 Analyzing Regressivity across Census Home Value Distributions

1.2 State Distributions

1.2.1 Ridges by state

1.2.2 Facet Density

1.2.3 State average (Bar)

1.2.4 Ridges by year

1.2.5 Trend breakout

1.3 County Distributions

1.3.1 Nationwide Map

1.3.2 County Scatter

1.3.3 Census Breakout

Census Tract Characteristics Regressed on Mean Assessment Ratio
Variable Coefficient P Value Significance
Non-Hispanic White Population (Percentage Points) 0.04% 4.6% Significant
Population in Poverty (Percentage Points) -0.85% 0.0% Significant
Share of Homes Vacant (Percentage Points) -0.35% 0.0% Significant
Share of Homeowners (Percentage Points) -0.20% 0.0% Significant
Share of Single Unit Homes (Percentage Points) -0.05% 30.0% Not Significant
Share in Same Home as Last Year (Percentage Points) -0.92% 0.0% Significant
High School Education or Higher (Percentage Points) 0.87% 0.0% Significant
College Education or Higher (Percentage Points) 0.78% 0.0% Significant
Per Capita Income ($1000s) 1.02% 0.0% Significant
Median Household Income ($1000s) 0.51% 0.0% Significant
Median Age (Years) -0.69% 0.0% Significant
Median Home Value ($1000s) 0.06% 0.0% Significant

An example interpretation of this table; a 1% increase in the percentage of individuals with a high school education is correlated with a 0.87% increase in effective tax rate.