Fairfax County’s Department of Tax Administration makes current assessments available online.
To view them, you need the correct property address, complete with house number and the name of the street. The Web address is www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dta for Department of Tax Administration.
Click on the link to “View My Property” and type in the property address for a review of the assessed taxes.
Every year, each parcel of residential and commercial property is assessed at its fair market value.
In Fairfax County, the current tax rate is $1.21 for every $100 of assessed value. For FY ‘04, County Executive Tony Griffin has proposed a reduction in the rax rate to $1.19 per $100 to partially blunt offset the rise in assessments.
But the assessments rose by more than a two-cent decrease could diminish, meaning higher tax bills for most taxpayers.
By law, when assessments cause an increase of more than one percent in the real property tax that is levied, the Board of Supervisors must advertise a hearing on the “effective tax rate,” the amount taxpayers are billed after the rise in assessments.
Under state law, if it goes up by more than one percent over the previous year’s tax, the Board must vote on it.
Each penny of tax is estimated to generate about $13 million in revenue for the county.
Under Virginia state law, records of property tax assessments are public information. Display of this information on the Internet is specifically authorized by Va. Code §58.1-3122.2 (1998).
It states that “the commissioner of the revenue may provide remote access, including access through the global information system known as the Internet, to all nonconfidential public records maintained by his office, subject to such limitations as may be imposed by applicable law.
“Any system of remote access created or maintained pursuant to this section shall include security measures that preclude remote access users from (i) obtaining any data that is required to be maintained as confidential pursuant to § 58.1-3, the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act (§ 2.2-3800 et seq.), the Virginia Public Records Act (§ 42.1-76 et seq.), or other applicable law, and (ii) modifying or destroying any record or data in any manner.”