Image Credit: Property tax by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free
By Rob Mitchell [Rutherford County Assessor of Property] –
It is important that information be provided for the benefit of the citizens to facilitate clarity and understanding. Our communities have made decisions regarding the level of services our county will provide based upon the constitutional requirements of the local governments and additionally upon the desires of citizens to provide additional benefits.
Property taxes are the most visible and transparent of all taxes for citizens. There is a direct correlation between the cost of a service and the tax burden on the citizen. The components of this tax are the assessed value (not appraised market value) and the tax rate. This will produce a value which is called the tax levy of a county.
Rutherford County’s assessed value has, for the first time in history, surpassed the assessed value of Hamilton County. (Rutherford County $15,236,298,953 vs Hamilton County $13,672,728,629).
Our assessed values are still less than Davidson $47,751,388,496; Shelby $25,432,276,362; Knox $19,200,143,056; and Williamson $18,361,374,460.
Every county and city in Tennessee are going through the same budget process currently. Many communities are faced with hard choices. Those choices are:
• taxes must be raised to cover the desired levels of those services;
• those services must be reduced;
• or local governments must sacrifice credit ratings.
When making these decisions it is important to remember that pursuit of “all or nothing” scenarios, while crafting a direction for the government, misses the valuable opportunity of consensus building. I believe we should entertain that which best serves all our citizens. To do that, we must listen to their desires.
When looking at the information below we should not view it and think” we have room to raise taxes”. We should look at that information and wonder “what changes do we need to make to lessen our overburdened citizens”?
| County | Total Property Tax Levy | Per Capita Tax Burden |
| Davidson | $1,395,295,572.00 | $1,970 |
| Williamson | $345,193,840.00 | $1,324 |
| Shelby | $862,154,169.00 | $941 |
| Wilson | $130,873,704.00 | $825 |
| Hamilton | $305,899,958.00 | $816 |
| Sumner | $153,318,211.00 | $752 |
| Montgomery | $161,499,085.00 | $687 |
| Rutherford | $246,249,064.00 | $683 |
| Sullivan | $108,346,716.00 | $674 |
| Knox | $298,370,223.00 | $603 |
2 Responses
Excellent article! I have problems taking Loudon County government seriously & if it was a private business, it would definitely fail. As far as Tellico Village where I live, we have too much taxation without competent, intelligent representation. Elected officials don’t understand the concept of transparency in government.
It could be easy to rectify.
$ ALL MUNICIPALITIES AND COUNTIES MUST HAVE A BALANCED BUDGET REQUIREMENT
!!! ALL BUDGETS MUST HAVE LINE ITEM REVIEW ON WWW.
+ ALL BODIES MUST GIVE NOTICE OF ALL PUBLICLY OWNED LAND, PROPERTY AND INVENTORY TO BE SOLD TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR or DECOMMISSIONED.