Property Tax Questions

[notoriusjt2]

I sold my primary house and purchased a new primary house in 2016 and I paid both property taxes through their respective escrow accounts. How do I know exactly how much property tax I paid on each property?

Is it the exact amounts that were dispersed to the cities from the escrow accounts?

its a little confusing because when I bough/sold in October, I had to prepay 6 months property taxes into my escrow account, but that money might not have been actually paid out to property taxes.

[SeattleCPA]

Take each house's property tax bill for the year, divide that value by 365 days in a year to get the daily property tax...

Then calculate the property taxes you paid on each house by taking the number of days you owned the house times that daily rate.

E.g., if you own house 1 for 100 days and its daily property tax equals $10, your property taxes on that house equal $1,000.

If you own house 2 for 200 days and its daily property tax equals $20, your property taxes on that house equal $4,000.

Your property tax deduction on Schedule A combines these two amounts... so $5,000.

BTW, you can read through the closing statements and mortgage interest statements, pull numbers off of them, and come up with a very, very similar value.

[jwright]

Your municipality probably has a website that shows how much actual tax was paid on both properties.  You could start there, and then subtract or add an pro-rations done at the closing to get the amount  you actually paid.

The amount you paid into escrow is likely more than the actual taxes since the escrow account usually requires a minimum deposit.

[MightyAl]

The escrow accounts are only used for either property tax or insurance.

Every municipality I have lived has a web site showing the exact amount paid for taxes and when it was paid.  The bank should also have a statement showing the amounts going into escrow every month and the payments going out for taxes and insurance. 

When you sold you should have gotten a refund of the excess funds in the escrow account minus the amount that you would have accrued in taxes.  This should be on your closing documents.

[MetalCap]

You will get an escrow statement from your bank that will have the official amounts stated for insurance, taxes etc.  It's best to wait for that (must be mailed by 1/30 from the bank) before you finalize your taxes.

If you're estimating, go off of your most recent statement which will have an escrow section with Taxes paid to date and Insurance paid to date/

[Spork]

I suspect (in addition to what has already been said above) that your closing statements for the purchase/sale of the houses will have a line in them for property tax.  I.e., if you paid 100% of the year for the sold house, the buyer should have a line where they pay their portion of the year.