States With the Highest Property Taxes

(This information was taken from an article by Michael Cohn, Washington DC, appearing in Accounting Today News on April 8, 2015)

The consumer finance site WalletHub has released a new report ranking the states with the highest and lowest real estate and vehicle property taxes across the country.

The report found the highest real estate taxes in the following states: 43. Vermont ($2,934);  44. Michigan ($3,168); 45. Nebraska ($3,228); 46. Connecticut ($3,301); 47. Texas ($3,327);     48. Wisconsin ($3,398); 49. New Hampshire ($3,649); 50. Illinois ($3,939); and 51. New Jersey ($3,971). The state with the lowest average real property tax is Hawaii at $482.

Ohio comes in at number 40 with an average real property tax of $2,677. Among the surrounding states, this compares to Michigan at $3,168, Pennsylvania at $2,597, West Virginia at $1,015, Kentucky at $1,145, and Indiana at $1,507.

However, Ohio does not levy any vehicle property tax, while twenty-seven states across the country do. Those include Michigan at $110, West Virginia at $378, Kentucky at $286, and Indiana at $300. Like Ohio, Pennsylvania has no vehicle property tax.

Nationwide, the average American household spends an average of $2,089 on real estate property taxes each year, and residents of the twenty-seven states that levy a vehicle property tax shell out another $423 annually.