Two things hitting mailboxes this week: property taxes and voting material. Pay attention to both!

Let’s talk about property taxes. Want to talk about politics? Go to Blue Oregon.

Your tax bill is either white or yellow. Yellow, your lending institution is paying the bill because they have an impound account and the yellow copy is just for your records. If it’s white, be prepared to write a check. Postpone the inevitable beyond November 15 and your three percent discount gets smaller based on the amount you do or do not pay. Decide that the City can do without your money and they’ll place a lien on your property. After three years, they can foreclose on your property.

If you have a mortgage you may or may not have an impound account. Banks like impound accounts because they know that your taxes and insurance is getting paid since they write the checks on your behalf. They collect 1/12 of the expected annual bills each month with your principal and interest payment. The total payment is PITI (Property Insurance Taxes Insurance). Each year the bank looks at the expected bills versus the amount in the account and decides if they need to adjust the payment. If they have collected too much, they’ll cut you a check.

What’s the Portland property tax rate? Our discounted tax bills are all 1.95% of the Taxed Assessed Value. Where the TAV comes from is beyond my expertise. It’s considerably lower than the Real Market Value.

10/21 Update: Read the comments! For every rule, there are exceptions. If the County makes a mistake and sends you a yellow statement, their fault or not, you still owe taxes!