Understanding Your Tax Bill

    Understanding your tax bill

The question comes up- Do I pay the same taxes as others in the county? This requires explaining the consolidated tax rate. Your property tax bill is really up to 16 different tax bills consolidated into one bill. In any one of these 16 different taxing authorities you pay the same rate as everyone else. The difference comes in what taxing authorities applies to your property.
A consolidated tax rate is the total levies that your property is subject to depending on which taxing bodies your property lies within. Every property is in one and only one school district, one and only one township or town, one county and so on. If you are in Mt Ayr School District the levy is 16.47282 and in Diagonal School District the levy is 19.38775. Anywhere in the district pays the same for that district. The countywide levies include the General Basic, hospital, General Supplemental, Mental Health, Assessors, Extension, and Debt service. Every one of these is paid at the same levy rate by all taxpayer. Simply Taxable value times levy equals tax. The Rural Basic levy only applies to properties that do not lie in the city limits of some town. Most of this levy goes to secondary roads. This is transferred to secondary roads by vote of the supervisors. If your property is in the city limits of a town the city council has its own levy. Mt Ayr city tax is 15.92908 while Diagonal is 19.88433. A property only pays tax for those districts which it is in.

Location	Diagonal City	Mt Ayr City	MonroeTownship	Sun Valley
School	19.38775	16.47282	16.47282	16.47282
10 countywide levies combined	14.27684	14.27684	14.27684	14.27684
Rural Basic	---	---	3.9500	3.9500
City	19.88433	15.92908	---	---
Sewer	---	---	---	1.62673
Township	---	---	0.60472	0.71046
Total	53.54892	46.67874	35.30438	37.03685

There are 43 different combinations in Ringgold county thus 43 different consolidated rates. Your tax bill of course taking into account both levy and taxable value. Higher taxable value results in higher tax bills. This chart gives the list of different districts and what the applicable levy is. Again if you pay into a district you pay at the same levy rates as everyone else in that district. Also note that each taxing authority has a board of elected officials which sets the original tax asking amount and oversees the spending of your funds. They are subject to public hearings on the tax askings and have to publish the proposed budget ahead of the hearing as set forth by Iowa law.