As a child you may not have dreamed of some day becoming a property tax collector, but that’s because you weren’t born in Ancient Egypt.  In Ancient Egypt only about one in a hundred citizens were literate.  Among those were the tax collectors of the day, also known as scribes.

Scribes were used to keep records of property holdings, including crops, cattle and slaves.  Because of their ability to read (and collect property tax revenue), scribes were highly valued and admired in Ancient Egypt.  Scribes to Pharaoh could own property and become rich.  They were generally exempt from manual labor.

Archeologist have discovered monuments and richly adorned tombs for some of the most loved scribes of Egypt and Persia.  When the Pharaoh died, scribes were the only people in his service that were spared from being buried alongside him.  All things considered, if I had to choose, the scribe route sounds like the way to go.

State and local governments are on track to collect more than $400 billion in property taxes this year, the most ever according to USA Today.  Unlike any other tax, property taxes are based on fair-market value.  Even with real and personal property values dropping across the country, property tax collections across the USA rose 4.9% from 2007 to 2008 according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In fact, property taxes have consistently risen since 1937.

Corporations bear the brunt of these property tax increases even as many struggle to stay afloat in 2009.  According to the Council on State Taxation American companies pay more in property taxes than any other state or local tax.  In fact, property taxes make up almost 40% of all state & local taxes.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that your property taxes will automatically decrease this year just because the values on your real and personal property may have plummeted.  It will take just as much diligence in analyzing and appealing properties that are over assessed as any other year… maybe even more.