Question

Two cities are identical in all respects except City A has an assessment ratio of 100% and City B (in another state) has an assessment ratio of 25%. Both cities need to raise $1,000,000 in property tax revenues. The statutory tax rates on property are

Answer 1

Available Options are:

A. higher in City A than City B.

B. higher in City B than City A.

C. identical in both cities.

D. dependent on non-property tax revenues in each.

Answer:

Option B. Higher in the city B than in city A.

Explanation:

If we talk about the assessment ration, then it is calculated as under:

Assessment ratio = Value of property assessed by municipality / Fair Market value of the property

This ratio helps in calculating the property tax for each year and if the ratio is higher then the property tax rate will be set higher to collect the target property tax revenue and vice versa.

As in this case, the assessment ratio of company B is 100% which is higher than city A, which means that the city B will require higher tax rates to collect the target property tax revenue.

Hence the property tax rate in city B will be higher than City A to collect the same target property tax revenue.