Editorial Policy

What We Cover

CountyTaxTools covers three categories of local tax at the county and county-equivalent level:

• Property tax (real estate tax) - The rate applied to the assessed value of real property. Expressed as a dollar amount per $100 of assessed value. Set locally by county boards of supervisors, city councils, or equivalent governing bodies.
• Vehicle personal property tax - An annual tax on vehicles based on assessed value. Rates, assessment methods, and due dates vary by jurisdiction. Where relief programs apply - such as Virginia's Personal Property Tax Relief Act (PPTRA) - we document the relief structure and applicable percentage.
• Sales tax - The combined rate applying to retail purchases in the jurisdiction. Sales tax is typically layered across a state base rate, a local rate, and in some areas a regional district surcharge. We document how those layers combine for each jurisdiction we cover.

Coverage does not extend to federal taxes, state-level income taxes, payroll taxes, business license fees, or other tax types not listed above. Any non-covered tax category is out of scope for this site.

Source Requirements

Every material tax fact published on this site must have an identified primary official source before it is published.

What qualifies as an official source:

• County, city, or municipal government websites - commissioner of the revenue, treasurer, assessor, or finance department pages
• State revenue, taxation, or transportation department publications
• Annual local tax rate surveys published by state agencies (such as the Virginia Department of Transportation Local Tax Rates Survey)
• Official state statutes and code sections where applicable

What does not qualify as an official source:

• Third-party data aggregators or commercial data providers
• News articles, blog posts, or forum discussions
• AI-generated summaries or outputs used alone
• Data from a neighboring county used to infer an unverified value for a different jurisdiction

We prefer official government domains (.gov, .us). Where an official government website operates under a different domain - for example, a county using a .com or .org address as its confirmed primary site - we use that domain when it is the primary official source for the jurisdiction.

Verification Before Publication

Identifying a source and verifying from that source are different steps. We track both.

A fact is considered verified when we have directly accessed the official source - by fetching the page, navigating via browser, or extracting from an official PDF - and confirmed the exact value from the rendered or extracted content. The source URL, access date, and access method are recorded in our internal data layer.

A fact where only a source URL has been identified but the value has not been directly confirmed is not published as a settled fact. It is either omitted from the page or explicitly disclosed as pending confirmation.

We do not publish values sourced from session memory, AI model outputs used without supporting extraction, or inferences drawn from neighboring counties - even where those values appear plausible. If the official source was not accessed and the value not extracted, it is not verified.

Year Attribution and Data Currency

Tax rates change. Counties adopt new rates at budget time. States adjust relief program percentages annually. Regional transportation district surcharges get added or removed. Our data reflects what official sources published as of the dates and tax years shown on each page.

Where the source year is known, we name it. A rate sourced from a 2025 tax year survey is presented as "2025 tax year" - not as a generic current rate without qualification. A rate from a FY2026 adopted budget is presented with that fiscal year attribution.

We do not present a prior-year rate as a confirmed current rate unless we have independently verified that the rate is unchanged for the current year. When we cannot confirm currency, we say so and direct users to the relevant official source to verify the current figure.

Uncertainty Disclosure

When a fact cannot be verified before publication, we do not estimate from neighboring counties, fill the gap with a plausible figure, or omit the uncertainty without noting it. We disclose it on the page.

A page may be published before all facts are resolved, provided:

• All published facts are either verified or clearly attributed to a specific source year with appropriate caveats
• Any unresolved item is either omitted entirely or explicitly labeled as pending confirmation
• No unresolved item is presented as a confirmed current fact

Examples of disclosures you will see on county pages:

• "PPTRA relief percentage pending confirmation - contact the commissioner of revenue to verify the current rate."
• "Rate shown is from the 2025 tax year survey. Verify the current rate at [official source]."
• "Personal use vehicle rate may differ from the general TPP rate shown. Contact the county treasurer to confirm."

These disclosures reflect the actual verification state of the data at the time of publication. They are removed or updated when confirmation is obtained from the official source.

No Fabricated Precision

We do not normalize, round, or adjust official figures in ways that change the published value. If an official source gives a property tax rate as $1.1225 per $100, we use $1.1225 - not $1.12 or "approximately $1.12."

We do not average rates from multiple sources. We do not apply one county's rate to an adjacent county because they appear similar. We do not publish a figure that implies authoritative precision when the actual sourced data does not support it.

Where a rate is genuinely composite - for example, a base rate plus separately levied district surcharges - we describe the components individually and note that the effective combined rate depends on the specific property location.

Corrections and Updates

Tax data changes. If you find a rate, date, formula, or other fact on this site that differs from the current official source, we want to know.

To submit a correction, contact us at Contact@CountyTaxTools.com. Please include:

• The county or jurisdiction affected
• The specific rate or fact that appears incorrect
• The official source citation - URL and access date, or document name and section reference
• The correct value as shown in the official source

County and city officials who identify an error are welcome to use the same contact. We will review the official source citation and update the relevant page with attribution to the corrected source.

Corrections are verified against the official source before any page is updated. We do not correct data based on unattributed reports or verbal corrections without a supporting official citation.

Related Pages

The About CountyTaxTools page covers what this site is, what we cover, and how we operate generally. The Methodology page documents the full verification workflow - source hierarchy, the Partial Verified Build rule, calculator inclusion rules per tax type, the email confirmation process, and the update cadence. This editorial policy page covers the specific standards governing how data is sourced and presented on every page. All three apply across the site.