District Detective

Colorado special district glossary

Assessed Value

Assessed value is the dollar amount assigned to your property by the county assessor for the purpose of calculating property taxes, and it is typically much lower than your home's market value.

In Colorado, residential property is assessed at 7.15% of its actual (market) value, so a home worth $500,000 would have an assessed value of roughly $35,750.

This assessed value is then multiplied by the combined mill levy of all taxing entities that overlap your property to determine your total annual property tax.

The assessment ratio can change through legislation, and recent changes in Colorado have adjusted this percentage to help offset rising home values.

Understanding assessed value is critical because it is the base number used in every property tax calculation, and even small changes in the ratio or your home's market value can meaningfully affect your tax bill.

Related Terms

Mill Levy

A mill levy is a property tax rate used by local governments and special districts in Colorado to fund their operations and debt payments.

Debt-to-AV Ratio

The debt-to-assessed-value (Debt-to-AV) ratio measures how much outstanding debt a special district carries relative to the total assessed property value within its boundaries.

TABOR

TABOR, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, is a provision in the Colorado Constitution (Article X, Section 20) that limits how much revenue state and local governments, including special districts, can collect and spend each year.

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