Philadelphia is a city known for its Philly cheese steak sandwich, the Liberty Bell and so much more. It’s very diverse with the different sections where a person can reside such as one filled with bars, one filled with schools and another that’s well-known for being a gay-friendly place to dwell.
Philadelphia Property Tax
How much your home is assessed for plays a role in the amount of taxes you’ll pay. Only a portion of the home’s value is taxable. Let’s say, you purchase a home that’s worth $127,300, and the abatement value/exempt value is $30,000. You’ll only need to pay taxes on $97,300 of the home’s value. Then, you need to determine the percentage the real estate taxes were from the previous year, which was 1.3998 percent. Therefore, for the 2016 tax year, you would owe $1,362.01 in real estate taxes. If you purchased a home with a value of $846,300, you wouldn’t receive an exemption, and you would be required to pay $11,846.51.
Vs. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
In Pittsburgh, tax payers pay to the city, Carnegie Library and the school district. They pay taxes on every 1/1000 of a dollar. The person then pays a designated amount per dollar. The designated amount is the one established for the previous year. For instance, the person would owe $8.06 to the city. In other words, if you owed a $200,000 home here, you would only owe taxes on $200 worth of it, which means you would owe $1,006 to the city. The dollar amount for the school district is $9.84; therefore, you would owe $1,968. The Carnegie Library tax is .25 for every dollar, which means you would owe $50.
Vs. Chicago, Illinois
Chicago, Illinois is known for having the lowest tax rate in Cook County in Illinois, but it isn’t cheaper than what you would pay in Philadelphia for a house of the same value. The median sales price for a home in the area is $236,000 as of February 2016, and the tax rate for the previous year was 1.86 percent. You would  pay $4,389.60 for your 2016 taxes. Unfortunately for residents of Chicago, taxes are increasing by .24 percent for the 2016 year. This means that if your home in “The Windy City” maintained the same value the following year, you would owe 2.1 percent for every dollar of your home’s value. Therefore, in 2016, you would be responsible for paying nearly $5,000, $4,956 to be exact.
Vs. Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana is one of the larger cities in California. It makes the list of the top 10 largest cities, but Philadelphia is the largest city in PA. So how do the two compare in regards to taxes? If you own a home that’s valued at $360,216 either before or after the amount of money you invested in improvements is taken into consideration, you’ll owe $4,956.00 in real estate taxes for the year of 2016 using 2015 tax’s rate. If you purchased a more expensive home for a value like $940,000, you would owe $10,786.00. These values vary based on the exemptions you have.
Vs. Austin, Texas
Residents in Texas benefit from the hot weather and rather dry conditions, but the taxes may reflect its livability factor when compared to Philadelphia. Austin, Texas residents like those who reside in most areas in the U.S. pay taxes on the value of their home. Although cities tend to have the same tax rate, the rate you have will depend on the location of your home since Austin spans across two counties. One part of Austin is in Travis County, where residents see a lower tax rate of 2.3798 percent. The other part of Austin is in Williamson County, where residents see a tax rate of 2.4191, which is only slightly higher. The average listing price of a home in Austin is $489,000. If you own a home valued at the average listing price, you can expect to pay $11,829.40 in Williamson County. However, if you own a home of the same value in the Travis County section of Austin, you’ll pay slightly less at $11,637.22 for the year.
Vs. Las Vegas, Nevada
Those who would love the flashing lights and even flashier lifestyle will be pleasantly surprised that the average listing price of a home in this region is only $194,000. The amount of taxes you pay varies based on the part of Las Vegas you live in. For instance, a home in north Las Vegas must pay taxes to the school, library, emergency services and the state. The percentage of taxes a person pays is 3.3544 percent. In this area for a home valued at the average listing price, a person would pay $6,875.36  annually.
Vs. Rochester, Â NYÂ
Rochester, NY has a few different taxes that people must pay including city, school, county and water. The city taxes are 06.206 percent, school tax is 13.939 percent, county is 10.7898862 and water is 1.340178. The combined percentage is 32.275040 percent. The rate is on 1/1,000 of a dollar. If you purchased a home for the average listing price of $114,900, the total amount you would owe is $3,708.08, not including additional charges.
Taxes vary depending on the city and even the area you live at, but some towns are much cheaper than others. Philadelphia’s taxes are relatively low. It’s still understandable why they’re slightly higher than the areas that aren’t as large.
2 Point Highlight
Philadelphia has lower taxes than cities like Chicago and Austin.
Exemptions in Philadelphia can save you from paying taxes of $30,000 of the value of your home.
