As a taxpayer, its important for you to understand how government spending, property values, and tax rates affect the size of your own tax bill. Property values determine each taxpayers share of the total taxes. Changes in property values may affect the tax bills of individual owners, but they do not necessarily increase or decrease the total amount of taxes to a taxing unit. A taxing unit's budget determines the total amount of taxes. A change in the tax rate by itself does not reflect an increase or decrease in taxes.
Total taxes increase only when government spending increases.
The only meaningful way to compare tax rates is to compare the amount of tax revenue they produce. Beginning in early August, taxing units take the first step toward adopting a tax rate by calculating and publishing the effective and rollback tax rates. The effective tax rate would provide the taxing unit with approximately the same amount of revenue it had the year before on properties taxed in both years. For example, if property values go up, the effective tax rate goes down. Comparing property tax revenues from one year to the next year tells you whether there will be a tax increase.