Tax Foundation, Property Tax Revenue Increased As Property Values Fell:

The Case-Shiller index, a popular measure of residential home values, shows a drop of almost 16% in home values across the country between 2007 and 2008. As property values fell, one might expect property tax collections to have fallen commensurately, but in most cases they did not.

Data on state and local taxes from the U.S. Census Bureau show that most states’ property owners paid more in FY 2008 (July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008) than they had the year before (see Table 1). Nationwide, property tax collections increased by more than 4%. In only four states were FY 2008’s collections lower than in FY 2007: Michigan, South Carolina, Texas and Vermont. And in three states—Florida, Indiana and New Mexico—property tax collections rose more than 10%.

Rank	State	Increase	Per Capita Tax
1	Florida	11.7%	$1,649
2	Indiana	11.6%	$1,089
3	New Mexico	10.2%	$568
4	Hawaii	9.7%	$977
5	Nevada	9.2%	$1,241
6	Alabama	9.1%	$495
7	West Virginia	8.7%	$683
8	Oklahoma	8.4%	$582
9	Minnesota	7.6%	$1,273
10	California	7.6%	$1,449
U.S. Average		4.2%	$1,352
41	Alaska	2.4%	$1,559
42	Iowa	2.4%	$1,245
43	New York	2.3%	$2,009
44	Tennessee	2.0%	$752
45	Ohio	1.8%	$1,178
46	Maryland	0.6%	$1,171
47	South Carolina	(1.7%)	$963
48	Michigan	(2.4%)	$1,443
49	Texas	(3.8%)	$1,393
50	Vermont	(4.9%)	$1,896