TaxEstimator Tour

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The interface is fairly straightforward. Start by entering a value in the first box, then selecting the county, city, and school. If the property is in an unincorporated portion of the county, choose No City. If the property is outside the county, choose No County. If a property is not in a county, city, school, or special district, you probably bought it from my Uncle Lester.

Next, choose an appropriate set of exemptions. All jurisdictions honor the disabled veterans exemptions. All school districts are required to honor a minimum set of exemptions for general homestead ($25,000), Over 65 ($10,000), and disabled persons ($10,000), but a few offer additional exemptions. Other jurisdictions are not required to honor general homestead, Over 65, or disabled person exemptions, but many do. The tables provided with TaxEstimator contain information regarding all exemptions honored by all jurisdictions in the counties for which tables are provided.

When you have selected an appropriate set of exemptions, click on the "Calculate" button.

The total tax estimate is calculated and displayed under the Total Tax tab. You may view details of the county, city, and school tax calculations by clicking on the appropriate tab. The Special District tax calculation, however, is a summary of all the applicable special districts, calculated independently, and represented as a single tax amount. You may view the list of applicable special districts (and change the selection of special districts) through the "Advanced Config" menu option (or by pressing Ctrl+C).

Which should bring you to the following screen (content varies by county).

The jurisdictions shown in bold are generally applicable to every property in the county. However, they may be de-selected by unchecking the box to the left of the jurisdiction name. Additional jurisdictions may be applied in the calculation by checking their box. The "Restore Defaults" button restores all special district settings to their original condition. Click the "Finish" button when you are ready to return to the main TaxEstimator screen.

You may load tax rates for other counties (or other years) by clicking on the "File|Open Tax Rate File" menu entry, or by pressing Ctrl+O.

You will be presented a standard Windows File Open dialog box which will allow you to navigate to any tax rate tables you may have. Several are supplied with TaxEstimator.

Double-click on the desired new table or click on the table name and then on the "Open" button to load the new table.

After a table is loaded, you may display the complete list of all jurisdictions and tax rates contained in the table by Selecting "List table contents" from the file menu or by pressing Ctrl-L.

Your list should look something like this (content varies by county).

The default sequence is by jurisdiction name, but you may sort either jurisdiction name or tax rate by clicking on the column header. Clicking the column header a second time reverses the order. Click on "Done" when ready to return to the TaxEstimator.