Local Millage Rates

My clients often ask me about property taxes, how they work in Michigan, and which areas in Marquette County have the most expensive and least expensive millage rates. In Michigan the state equalized value is approximately 50% of the home value. If you are living in the home and declare 100% homestead in that property the rate is less than if you use it as a second home or income property. In general a "Non-homestead" home costs about 18 more mills than a "Homestead" property.

Because of Proposal A's taxable value cap, the taxable value of property may be significantly less than state equalized value (one-half of estimated market value). Proposal A was put in place so that a home owner's taxes won't increase too quickly leaving them unable to pay. However, in the year after a property is sold, the taxable value of property will likely increase to the state equalized value. In estimating property taxes on property that will be purchased, use the state equalized value of the property, not the taxable value, or use one-half of the estimated purchase price. Hope that's all clear.

As far as millage rates go they can vary a great deal from one city/township to another. Here is a list of local 2007 homestead millage rates. Let's say you were purchasing a home for 100,000 in the city of Ishpeming. We would divide the purchase price by 2 to get 50,000 (taxable value). Ishpeming's millage rate is 43.3376 so we would then multiply $50,000 by 4.33376% for a total of $2166.88 per year.

You'll notice that several of the townships have different millage rates according to which school system the property falls under.

City/Township
City of Ishpeming - 43.3376
City of Negaunee - 39.4929
City of Marquette - 34.1615
Ewing Township - 30.8223
Champion Township - NICE Schools 29.9213 Powell Schools 25.7516
Richmond Township - 27.7458
Humboldt Township - NICE Schools 27.7776 Republic Michigamme 24.2079
Negaunee Township - 26.0369
Turin Township - 25.9703
Michigamme Township - Republic Michigamme Schools 25.9401 NICE Schools 29.5098
Marquette Township - Marquette Schools 25.2072 Gwinn Schools 23.9072
Chocolay Township - 23.9375
Forsyth Township - 23.7612
Republic Township - 23.6203
Ishpeming Township - NICE 23.3027 Ishpeming 25.1830 Powell 19.1330 Negaunee 23.2514
Sands Township - Gwinn Schools 22.2340 Marquette Schools 23.5340
Tilden Township - 22.8569
Ely Township - 22.8560
Wells Township - 21.4043
Skandia Township - 20.9919
Powell Township - 20.8172
West Branch Township - 19.5733