Charleston South Carolina property tax
Good news for Charleston South Carolina real estate homeowners as property taxes are significantly lower for 2007. The South Carolina legislature reduced property taxes by funding the schools with a complicated sales tax adjustment; increase the sales tax on everything except decrease the sales tax for food purchased at grocery stores.
The new tax bills should make every homeowner happy. 
I didn't get my tax bill yet in my mailbox but that isn't surprising since the post office does a generally poor job of actually delivering mail but I did check out the tax link on the Charleston MLS and noticed that the property tax on my personal residence was down by over 33% from last year.
Here are a few examples from homes in Summerville located in Dorchester County showing the appraised value (not the market value) and annual property tax of homes at various price points.
$160,000 $1073
$210,000 $1381
$308,000 $1981
$700,000 $4410
The above assume that the home is your primary personal residence and you are qualified to be taxed at the 4% rate. But here is something interesting. I noticed a home that had an assessed value of $360,000. It was taxed at the 6% rate and the property tax was a whopping $6667.
Now in the old days, you were encouraged to apply for the 4% rate if you qualified so that you would save approximately 50% off the tax. But the legislature didn't really care about any tax relief for investment property or people who aren't really full time residents of South Carolina so they didn't offer any relief whatsoever and now the tax is almost double a home twice as expensive oops, approximately 50% higher than a home twice as expensive and triple the tax rate of a similarly valued home.
So rather than just encouraging you to fill out the simple paperwork to make sure you save money, I'm going to strongly suggest you do or plan on throwing money away. Or I can brow beat you, it's your choice.
By the way, if you are over 65 or disabled, the first $50,000 in value is not taxed (once again, only if you apply) so please fill out the paperwork and save some money.