I pay $22K a year in taxes just to live in my own skin.
My question is what happened in Montana? Did they suddenly look at California and say give me some of that insanity?
I live in Kentucky and bought my house and 5 acres of land in the mountains over 20 yrs ago for $130,000. I have a 3400 sq ft house counting the garage. I paid in the $800-$900 range property taxes for many years. Then about six years ago the county school board installed a new superintendent and they passed a recallable nickel property tax to redo the football field with Astroturf and a few other things. The new superintendent and board assured everyone that their taxes would go up max, $50-$100. The nickel tax kept increasing. Now I am up to $1500 a year in taxes. Thank God that crazy bitch superintendent picked a fight with a cities school system in the county resulting in her getting fired or I would be paying $3000 a year!
That being said, I have no fire department services and if I call the sheriff their response averages between 30-45 minutes or longer. The only service I get is my road scrapped, 2-3 days into a big snow.
My brother lives in Knox County Tennessee and his house is around 2000 sq ft and appraises for $350,000. He gets full service, fire, police etc... and he pays less than I do on property taxes.