Okay, so property tax is due on any property really that doesn't have some kind of exemption. They vary mostly form state to state, but can include land designated for agriculture, forestry, etc., and in some cases, there are exemptions for the elderly. I'm not aware of all of them, but there could be many more.

As far as our tax bill is concerned, there are several taxing authorities that combine to create our bill. The county we live in takes care of the billing and collecting, and then distributes the appropriate amounts out to these authorities.

In our case, the county is actually one of them, along with the city we live in, the school district, the fire district and the community college. There's actually one or two others on the list.

Also included are local options or levies that any of those entities may choose to float which are mostly for renovating or building new structures, such as schools, firehouses, sheriff or police departments, etc. It can alos include increasing the budgets of these districts. These local options happen quite frequently, but must be voted upon by the residents of said district in a formal election in order to become taxable.

Sometimes, there are multiple levies from the same district simultaneously, but they do have built in sunsets. For example, the school district wants $5 million to build a new high school/middle school campus, which will then be recuperated over a 10 year period via property taxes, but then they decide they need an additional $2 million to build another elementary school five years into the other one.

Within the county's purview, there could be the sheriff's office, along with roads and other types of infrastructure, land mitigation, etc, that doesn't fall under some other jurisdiction.

The total amount paid by a property owner each year is based on the real market value of the property, less any exemptions. For the most part, the RMV keeps increasing, so then, too, the taxes, along with whatever gets added into the mix. The tax rates on these RMVs vary, too.