Like many homeowners in Bryan County, I opened our latest property tax assessment recently and did a genuine double take. It certainly got my attention! The big jump in valuation, soon to be appealed I must add, immediately got me thinking about how property taxes here compare with those in the country where I grew up. When I first arrived in Georgia, I assumed every country taxed homes in much the same way, but I quickly discovered that wasn’t the case. The United Kingdom does not have a single “property tax” in the way most Americans understand the term. Instead, the UK assesses a “Council Tax” which is the closest equivalent to the American system. This annual tax is levied by local authorities to fund local services such as police, fire, waste collection, and education and is paid by the occupier of the property, not the owner (unless the property is vacant). However, the UK also has a national Stamp Duty Land Tax which is a transaction tax paid when you purchase property or land with a value above a certain threshold. Taxes in the United States date back to North America’s colonial era and in America’s 250th year, we still remember the political slogan used by American Patriots during the Revolutionary War: “No taxation without representation”. This slogan took root after the French and Indian War (1754– 1763) when the British government found itself in a huge amount of debt and began implementing new taxes on their American colonies. To the British, the whole purpose…
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