By Dane Smith,
President Growth & Justice
 
How regressive are residential property taxes? Very Huge. Households in the top 1 percent of incomes (those making more than $450,000) are projected to pay on average about 0.7 percent of that income in residential property taxes in 2009. The household average for the state as a whole will be about 2.5 percent of our annual income in property taxes, or more than three times the effective tax rate of the to-enders. And those right in the middle and just below the middle will pay about 3.5 percent of their income in property taxes, or five times the effective rate paid by those at the very top.