This chapter includes a hypothetical example for City A to demonstrate the standard method of determining the extent of double taxation.

Step I - Identify Duplicated and Jointly Financed Services
 

Note: Fire protection, law enforcement, and garbage collection are services provided by City A and County A. While City A residents are taxed by both local governments, they receive only fire protection, law enforcement, and garbage collection. These are duplicated services. The recreation center and library are jointly financed by County A and City A. An agreement was reached whereby the cost of construction of each facility would be split in half.

Step II - Identify County General Fund Revenues, Property Tax Revenues, Property Tax Ratio and County General Millage Rate
 

Note: The county audit reveals that County A had total general fund revenues of $4,871,200 in the previous fiscal year. Property taxes accounted for $4,000,000 of county revenues. Additional major revenue sources are Other Taxes and Garbage Collection Fees.
 

Note: A total of $420,000 must be subtracted from $4,871,200 in order to obtain actual County General Fund Revenues. In this example, revenues from Occupation Taxes are deleted because they are only applied to unincorporated residents. Other sources of revenue legally restricted to one purpose or not collected from residents living within a municipality include Building Permits, DOJ Grant, Garbage Collection Fees, and the DNR Grant. Revenue derived from Building Permits is earmarked for Code Enforcement.

It is also possible that revenue gained from Building Permits goes into the general fund in your county. If that is the case, do not delete it in A.1. The Garbage Collection Fees are used to finance the garbage collection service, and all of the grants are restricted. Thus, County General Fund Revenues equal $4,451,200.
 

Step V - Potential County Property Tax Millage Reduction for City Residents