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Two near-identical homes can have very different tax bills because of assessment timing, caps, exemptions, district boundaries and appeals. Here's what drives the gap.

Exemptions cut your taxable value and lower your bill. Here's how homestead, senior, veteran and disability exemptions work, who qualifies, and how to claim them.

If your assessed value is too high, you can appeal. Here's the step-by-step process: check your assessment, gather comparable sales, file by the deadline, and present your case.

A mill rate is the statutory rate set by your local government; the effective rate is what you actually pay as a share of market value. They differ because of assessment ratios, caps and exemptions.

Your property-tax bill is assessed value minus exemptions, times the local tax rate (mill rate). Here's each step, with a worked example and how to sanity-check your bill.

Hawaii has the lowest effective property-tax rate at about 0.27%, followed by Alabama and Colorado. Here are the lowest-tax states by rate, and why a low rate isn't always a low bill.