Where are American home owners hit with the heaviest property tax levies? You might be surprised. Tapping into special Census Bureau survey data, the National Association of Home Builders has come up with two different sets of answers -- one list based on the highest annual tax dollars actually paid out, and a second list based on the highest tax rates levied.

When it comes to sheer dollars paid out, New Jersey is tops by far. If you own property there, you pay the highest median taxes in the U.S. -- a whopping $5,352 a year. That's not primarily because your home's market value is so high. After all, California ($477,700 median value), Hawaii ($453,000), the District of Columbia ($384,000) and Massachusetts ($361,500) have more expensive houses than New Jersey's $334,000, yet homeowners in all of them pay less per year than their compatriots in New Jersey.

It's mainly because New Jersey funds 35.3 percent of all local and state government activities from the property tax revenues it collects from homeowners-far higher than the 22 percent U.S. median. Only New Hampshire, which has no state income tax, derives a higher percentage of government revenues from its property owners (43 percent). However, because of lower home values ($249,000 median), the typical owner in New Hampshire pays a median $3,900 in property levies -- $1,432 less than the typical New Jerseyan.

The rest of the heavy-handed dozen tax states in terms of median dollars per home: Connecticut ($3,865 median), New York ($3,076), Rhode Island ($3,071), Massachusetts ($2,974), Illinois ($2,504), Vermont ($2,835), Wisconsin ($2,777), California ($2,275), Washington ($2,250) and Alaska ($2,241).

The U.S. median property tax bill per year is $1,614, according to the NAHB study.

Now for the states with the lightest tax bills: Louisiana, where the median property tax paid per year is a minuscule $175. Then come Alabama ($302), West Virginia ($389), Mississippi ($416), Arkansas ($459), Oklahoma ($635), South Carolina ($642), Kentucky ($693), New Mexico ($707), Wyoming ($737) and Tennessee ($794).

But wait a minute. Don't these low-and high-annual median tax payouts reflect home values to some degree? Absolutely, says the author of the study, economist Natalia Siniavskaia. Ranking the states by their median tax rates produces a rather different list of heavy and light taxers, and may indeed be the more accurate measure.

For example, Texas, which collects a median $1,926 from its home owners in property taxes per year, turns out to be nearly the heaviest taxer among the states in terms of rate-a median $18.17 per $1,000 of value. Only Wisconsin imposes a heavier rate -- $18.20 per $1,000.

Other states that rank among the highest by rate include Nebraska ($16.69 per $1,000), Vermont ($16.35), New Hampshire ($16.33), New Jersey ($16.03), Illinois ($15.79) and North Dakota ($14.97).

States that appeared to be heavy taxers, but that actually have moderate rates applied to high median home values, include California, whose $4.77 per $1,000 in value ranks it 45th in the country, and Massachusetts, ranked 29th with a median rate of $8.23 per $1,000.

Published: June 4, 2007

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Kenneth R. Harney writes an award-winning, nationally-syndicated column on housing and real estate from Washington, D.C. He is also managing director of the National Real Estate Development Center, a professional education company. He is a past member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council, a committee that by federal statute reviews all Fed actions on home mortgage, consumer credit and banking industry regulation. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Working Group on Computerized Loan Origination (CLO) systems, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Fannie Mae Foundation's journal, Housing Policy Debate. He is the author of two books on mortgage finance and real estate.