$ PlainPropertyTax

About PlainPropertyTax

Our Mission

Property taxes are the single largest source of locally raised revenue in the United States, funding schools, emergency services, infrastructure, and local government operations. Yet understanding how property taxes actually work — what you will pay, how your county compares, and whether your assessment is reasonable — is surprisingly difficult. We built PlainPropertyTax because we believe every homeowner, homebuyer, and taxpayer deserves clear, comparable property tax data.

Our philosophy is rooted in the belief that tax transparency strengthens communities. When citizens can easily see how their property tax burden compares to neighboring counties and states, they can make more informed decisions about where to live, when to appeal an assessment, and how to evaluate local government spending.

PlainPropertyTax makes this comparison possible for all 3,153 counties and county-equivalents in the United States, plus state-level summaries for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

We present the data factually, without advocating for higher or lower taxes. Our role is to make the numbers accessible and comparable — the policy conclusions are yours to draw.

What You Can Find

PlainPropertyTax organizes property tax data into several browsable categories:

  • County profiles — Median property taxes, effective tax rates, median home values, and tax-to-income ratios for all 3,153 U.S. counties
  • State profiles — State-level summaries with county-by-county breakdowns and statewide averages
  • Rankings — Highest and lowest effective tax rates, median taxes paid, and tax burden relative to income at both state and county levels
  • Property tax calculator — Estimate your annual tax bill based on home value and local effective rates
  • Guides — How property taxes work, how to appeal your assessment, and state-specific tax information

Our Data Sources

All data on PlainPropertyTax comes from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates, the gold standard for county-level demographic and housing data in the United States. We use ACS data covering multiple survey years from 2019 through 2024.

We pull data from several specific ACS tables:

  • Table B25077 — Median home value for owner-occupied housing units, providing the baseline for effective tax rate calculations
  • Table B25103 — Median real estate taxes paid by owner-occupied units with a mortgage, the core property tax metric for each geography
  • Related Housing Cost Tables — Additional ACS tables covering housing costs, household income, and homeownership rates that provide context for tax burden analysis

All data is retrieved directly from the Census Bureau API (api.census.gov). This is the same data source used by researchers, real estate professionals, and policymakers nationwide.

The ACS 5-Year Estimates provide reliable data for every county in the United States, including rural counties with small populations where single-year estimates would be statistically unreliable.

How We Process the Data

Our ETL pipeline queries the Census Bureau API for each survey year and processes the data through several stages:

  • Multi-Year Extraction — We pull ACS 5-Year Estimates for survey years 2019 through 2024, covering county-level and state-level geographies for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories
  • Effective Tax Rate Calculation — We compute effective property tax rates by dividing median taxes paid (B25103) by median home value (B25077) for each county and state
  • Tax Burden Ratios — We calculate property tax as a percentage of median household income, providing a tax burden measure that accounts for local economic conditions
  • Trend Assembly — Multi-year data is assembled into time series for each county, enabling users to see how taxes, home values, and rates have changed
  • Rankings — County and state rankings are computed for highest/lowest effective rates, median taxes paid, and tax burden relative to income
  • Indexing — Database indexes optimize lookups by state FIPS, county FIPS, and ranking category for fast page rendering

All underlying Census figures are presented as published. Our derived metrics (effective tax rates, tax-to-income ratios) use standard formulas that are documented and reproducible from the source data.

The effective tax rate formula (median taxes / median home value) is a widely used approximation employed by tax policy researchers, the Tax Foundation, and other organizations for cross-county comparison.

Data Currency

The Census Bureau releases new ACS 5-Year Estimates annually, typically in December. Each release covers a rolling five-year collection period — for example, the 2024 release covers survey responses collected from 2020 through 2024.

We update our database when new ACS releases are published, adding the latest year while preserving historical data for trend comparison. The current dataset includes survey years from 2019 through the most recent available release.

The five-year rolling window provides reliable estimates for small counties but may lag rapid changes in home values or tax policies. Areas experiencing housing booms or tax reforms may see outdated figures until the next annual release.

Editorial Independence & AI Disclosure

Content on PlainPropertyTax is AI-assisted and human-edited. Raw data from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (tables B25077, B25103, B19013, B25091) is transformed into readable county and state profiles by our automated pipeline, then validated against the source before publication. The PlainPropertyTax editorial team, operating under Kiznis Studio, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from assessors, tax-appeal firms, real-estate brokerages, or any covered jurisdiction. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense — advertisers do not influence which counties we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations and Disclaimers

PlainPropertyTax is an independent project and is not affiliated with the U.S. Census Bureau, any state or local government, or any tax authority. Data is for informational and educational purposes only.

  • Survey estimates, not actual tax bills — ACS data is based on survey responses, not administrative records from county assessors. Figures may differ from actual tax bills
  • Median values mask variation — Median taxes represent the midpoint. Individual properties pay more or less depending on assessed value, exemptions, and special levies
  • Effective rates are approximations — Our effective tax rate does not reflect actual millage rates, assessment ratios, equalization factors, or taxing district overlays
  • Five-year averaging smooths volatility — ACS 5-Year Estimates average data over five years, which improves reliability but may lag rapid market changes
  • Not a tax calculator replacement — Our calculator provides rough estimates based on county-level rates and cannot account for individual assessments, homestead exemptions, or special district levies
  • County boundaries only — We display county-level data, not municipality or school district data. Tax rates within a county can vary significantly by jurisdiction

This site does not provide financial, tax, or investment advice. Consult a qualified tax professional or your local assessor before making financial decisions based on property tax data.

Editorial Team

PlainPropertyTax is published by Kiznis Studio Editorial, a small independent team that builds public-data portals so that government records remain accessible to the people they describe. Our editorial work on property-tax data is led by editors with backgrounds in housing-policy analysis, public-records reporting, and municipal finance research — disciplines that combine to vet what county assessors and the Census Bureau publish, surface its limitations (assessment lag, exemption complexity, jurisdictional inconsistency), and translate the technical structure of property-tax administration into language a homeowner can use to verify their own bill or compare jurisdictions.

We do not employ tax attorneys or licensed CPAs and do not publish original tax advice. Instead, our editorial standard is verification, citation, and transparency: every effective rate, levy figure, and exemption rule we surface is traceable to a Census ACS release, BLS CPI deflator, state DOR publication, or county assessor file, and every methodology decision (how we standardize across counties, how we handle missing data, how we time-align across vintages) is documented at /methodology. When government data is approximate or self-reported — for example, ACS sample-based effective rates or pre-Census exemption tables — we flag the caveat on the page where the data appears, not buried in a footer.

Editorial questions, fact corrections, and source-attribution issues should go to hello@plainpropertytax.com. We are accountable for what we publish: every correction we make is reflected in the next data refresh, and our update schedule is documented above so readers can see how recent the underlying figures are. PlainPropertyTax does not accept paid placement, sponsored listings, or any incentive that would compromise the neutrality of how counties, states, or assessment districts appear on the site.

Contact

Questions, feedback, or data inquiries? Reach us at hello@plainpropertytax.com. We welcome inquiries from homeowners, real estate professionals, researchers, and journalists.

PlainPropertyTax is published by Kiznis Studio, a data intelligence company that builds free, public-interest data portals. We transform complex government datasets into accessible, searchable resources for researchers, journalists, policymakers, and the public.