Assessing Inequalities in Property Taxation by Homeowner Age and Race

Systematic differences in homeowners assessment ratiosthe ratio of assessed values (determined by county assessor offices for the purpose of property taxation) to market valuescan drive stratification in relative property tax burdens, and thus in the ability to access and maintain homeownership. There is reason to believe that younger and non-White homeowners face higher assessment ratios than older and White cohorts, in part due to assessment caps that limit growth in assessed values for longer-tenured homeowners. However, the research designs of previous studies measuring stratification in assessment ratios do not capture the longest-tenured homeowners, who are expected to have the lowest assessment ratios and who are disproportionately older and White. These homeowners likely drive substantial age- and race-based inequalities in property tax burdens, but the methods used in previous research are insufficient to measure this stratification. We propose to use a RSF Trustee Grant to more accurately measure a) age- and race-based inequalities in property tax burdens and b) the effects of assessment caps on these inequalities. Our innovation comes from the use of a nationwide dataset of assessed and estimated market values for nearly all residential probabilities in the United States. We plan to probabilistically link consumer reference data containing the gender and age of homeowners to our property-level data, and use a state-of-the-art Bayesian method to assign race group probabilities to homeowners to estimate racial disparities in property tax burdens.