Kenton County has reduced its real property tax rate to the lowest it has been since 1983.
The Kenton County Fiscal Court conducted a second reading of an ordinance on Tuesday lowering its real property tax rate from 13.3 cents to 12.5 cents per $100 valuation—a 6% reduction from the previous year.
This is the fourth consecutive year the county has lowered its rate.
Property taxes are broken down into several categories. The first and usually largest chunk of your tax bill is real property tax, sometimes referred to as real estate property tax. This is essentially a tax on everything you own that’s nailed down. For residents, this means houses and other real estate property. For businesses, this means office buildings and other buildings and facilities used to conduct business.
Tangible personal property, on the other hand, is another form of property that isn’t real estate. Depending on where you live, residents may not be taxed on personal property at all–this will vary by jurisdiction.
Depending on where you live, other tax-adjacent fees may apply.
How do property taxes work?
Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said the county was doing the “right thing” by reducing the rate.
“For two years, we’ve worked to rebalance our revenue system so the tax burden
is taken off Kenton County homeowners,” Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann
said in a press release. “Now we’re seeing the results of those efforts with the recent rate reductions.”
Commissioner Jon Draud said the rate reduction is helping make Kenton County one of the most attractive places in the state to live.
“Keeping our property-tax rate low levels the playing field with our neighboring
counties,” he said.
In addition, Kenton County’s motor vehicle tax rate remains the same at 15.8 cents per $100 valuation, and its personal property tax rate is 16 cents per $100 valuation.
The Kentucky Department of Revenue defines real property as land and any permanent structures attached. Tangible personal property is defined as physical and taxable property like manufacturing machinery, artwork, antiques, coin collections and construction equipment. Registered cars and watercraft are excluded from qualifying as tangible personal property.
Last October, Kenton County voted to reduce the county’s occupational tax rate, or payroll tax, from 0.9097% to 0.6997% on all wages below 100% of the federal Social Security cap, which is $168,600 in 2024.
The reduction followed a controversial payroll tax hike the year prior. Starting in January 2023, the payroll tax rate went from 0.7097% on all wages under $25,000 to 0.9097% on all wages under $80,100.
When the fiscal court voted to raise the county’s payroll tax rate in November 2022, members of the legislative body said they were attempting to solve the “balance of revenue generation” between payroll and property taxes.
In statements leading up to the payroll tax hike, then-Kenton County Treasurer Roy Cox said that payroll taxes historically made up a disproportionate amount of the county’s revenue, causing the county to be overly reliant on them for revenue generation. The hike would allow the county to readjust its taxation structure so the fiscal court could reduce property taxes on residents down the road.
Eventually, the plan manifested as Kenton County voted to lower its property tax rate from 14.4 cents to 13.3 cents per $100 valuation in August 2023.
According to Knochelmann, this was all part of the plan.
“It’s important to remind people this part of the plan, as we adjusted the occupational (tax) and are getting the property tax rate down,” Knochelmann said during the fiscal court meeting.
During the previous fiscal court meeting on Aug. 13, Knochelmann said that the effort was to reduce the county’s likelihood of raising the property tax rate. Treasurer Kurt Greivenkamp noted that Kenton County has $154,484,000 worth of new property assessment.
