DC’s Lowest Effective Property Taxes Are East of the River

• March 12, 2015

by UrbanTurf Staff

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A new analysis from the city’s Office of Revenue Analysis reveals that DC residents who own homes east of the Anacostia River pay the lowest effective property taxes in the city.

Before we delve into the findings, here is a quick primer on ways that DC homeowners see their tax burden go down.

DC’s Homestead Exemption deducts $70,400 from your property’s assessed value when calculating the amount of tax you must pay. Also, the city has an assessment cap that means a property can not be taxed on more than a 10 percent increase in its assessed value each year. Homes in neighborhoods where property values are rapidly rising benefit the most from the latter.

With those two provisions in mind, the latest post on District Measured states that the neighborhoods with the greatest difference between taxable assessments and market assessments are east of the Anacostia River and in areas where property values are growing rapidly:

In the Congress Heights neighborhood, for example, the taxable assessments are only 56 percent of the market assessments. In neighborhoods where values are growing fast, such as Eckington and Riggs Park, the taxable assessments are at about 67 to 68 percent of market assessments. In the northwest quadrant, especially west of Rock Creek Park, taxable assessments are closest to market assessments. This is because the housing values in these neighborhoods are very high, and they grow at much slower rates.

The map above outlines taxable assessments versus market assessments on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_lowest_effective_property_taxes_are_east_of_the_river/9638