Millages often appear on our ballots. They can be requested by any level of government but must be approved by voters. Millages are determined by a mathematical formula that says how much an owner of a house or a building will pay, in addition to their standard property taxes, into a pot of money for specific public services. Traditionally we talk about taxes in terms of percentages, such as 6% sales tax. Millage rates are the same as a property tax rate, but aren’t calculated using percentages; instead they are calculated as mills per dollar — they are a portion of a dollar that add up. A mill equals $1 of tax for every $1,000 of taxable value of a property.
