I had this conversation with someone just the other night. They were telling me that Martin County taxes are sooo much less than they are in Palm Beach County. Let’s just cut to the bottom line here and say that they are not.
CLICK HERE to read my 20149 version of this post.
There are two basic segments of your real estate tax bill: Ad Valorem and Non Ad Valorem. Ad Valorem taxes are a percentage of your assessed value and non Ad Valorem are, well they’re not. The percentage of the assessed value that your tax bill equates to is called the millage rate. There are some cities and towns which have attempted to make there millage rate appear lower by pulling out of the total tax budget used to calculate the millage rate everything they can. Thus in West Palm Beach the millage rate for 2004 is 23.2704 BUT residents pay for trash pick up in addition to this. Where as in North Palm Beach the 2004 millage rate is 22.0701 BUT trash pick up is included in this number.
Anyway, to return to the point. The 2004 millage rate for the unincorporated areas of Palm Beach County is 18.8006 where the rate for the unincorporated areas of Martin County is 17.1003. The difference being 1.7003 or $1.70 per $1000 of assessed value. On a 300,000 total asses value this is $510 per year. Not to dismiss $500 a year but it just would not dictate where I chose to live. I just looked up a non waterfront house at 6 Admirals Walk, FL 34996 and the 2014 tax bill is $3,968 on a house asking $325,000. Whereas the house at 2566 La Lique Cir in Palm Beach Gardens is asking $350,000 and has a 2014 tax bill of $4,248.
Bottom line is that the taxes are, for the most part, a percentage of the assessed value and the differences simply are not that great.
