When it comes to Seattle's property tax levy, renters are not immune

This fall, Seattle voters will decide on the biggest property tax measure in the city's history — the $1.5 billion transportation levy.

The levy would pay for things like bridge repairs and bus lanes.

Its fate may hinge the city’s makeup of homeowners and renters.

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Seattle is made up of 55% renters and 45% homeowners. That's relevant because renters and homeowners tend to vote differently on property tax increases.

“What I've noticed is where there are more renters that don't feel a property tax burden, and more younger people that those measures pass more easily,” says Marc Greenough, who works for Foster Garvey, a law firm that helps cities pass property tax levies.

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Greenough says homeowners are less likely to approve property tax increases.

What is "salience"?

The reason for the difference comes down to a word used by academics who study taxes: salience.

"Salience is the idea [that] you're more aware of some taxes than others," explains Isabelle Cohen, who teaches economics at the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.

"If you're a homeowner, you're getting that bill from the county, and you're sort of saying, 'Wow, this is what I'm paying.'”

Many homeowners don't have perfect awareness about their property taxes. That's because some pay those taxes bundled together with their mortgages.

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People who've paid off their mortgages, including many seniors, are the most aware of their property taxes. That's because they write a check for those taxes twice a year to the county treasurer.

But renters are generally less aware of how property taxes impact their monthly rent.

“We know you are bearing some of those same property taxes, but they're incorporated in the total rent amount you're paying," Cohen says. "You never see them pulled out separately. And so I think there's a sense that it affects you less.”

Impact on renters

So how much of the cost of property tax levies is borne by renters?

It depends on how much the landlord passes on to them.

Cohen imagines the landlord's thought process as they consider their rising property taxes: "They're gonna have in mind all the costs that they're paying, including the property tax," she says.

"And so, as they're thinking about how to increase rents, you know, when someone new is coming into the apartment, when someone is renewing their lease, the current property tax bill they're paying is just gonna be one of those factors that they're building in to the rent increases."

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The amount of property tax increases that renters pay on average is hotly debated. Some economists put the number at 15%, others at 115%.

"That's a really big range," says Cohen. She says most economists use a ballpark estimate that 50-60% of property tax increases are eventually passed on to renters.

It should be noted that property taxes are also lower on apartments. That's because apartments have lower official values than single-family homes, and property taxes are based partly on the value of a building. So, even if a renter pays all of a landlord's property tax bill in the form of a rent increase, it's still going to be less than if they'd owned a freestanding home.

RELATED: Booming episode "Are we on the brink of a tax revolt?"

Will the levy pass?

Some levies require 60% to pass, but Seattle's 2024 transportation levy, which is technically called a "levy lid lift," only requires 50%.

It's very likely to pass, at least according to a small survey of 1,000 voters conducted for the City of Seattle.

RELATED: As city mulls $1.5 billion transportation levy, SDOT works through 'Move Seattle' projects

The city surveyed people on whether they'd support a $1.3 billion levy and a $1.7 billion levy. By graphing the results between these two bookends, and by drawing a line between the support for each size of levy, the results suggest a $1.55 billion levy would easily exceed the 50% plus one vote needed to pass.

Seattle's Transportation Levy will be on the November ballot.

Hear more about how tax revolts throughout history have affected local governments' ability to generate revenue, on KUOW's economics podcast, Booming.

Look for the episode titled "Are we on the brink of a tax revolt?"