Property Taxes

Understanding Your Property Taxes

Interpreting property tax information can be challenging, a property's overall or consolidated tax rate is made up of many pieces, all controlled by different authorities that operate independent of each other.  Depending on where your property is located in West Des Moines you may have a different property tax rate than property in another part of West Des Moines.  The City of West Des Moines corporate boundaries cover four counties and six school districts, which results in nine different consolidated tax rates. The consolidated tax rate is made up of levies authorized by the following:

• City
• School District
  • Des Moines
  • Norwalk
  • Van Meter
  • Waukee
  • West Des Moines
  • Winterset
• County
  • Dallas
  • Madison
  • Polk
  • Warren
• Transit - Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART)
• Community College - DMACC
• County Hospital
  • Broadlawns Medical Center (Polk County)
  • Dallas County Hospital
  • Madison County Hospital
• County Assessor
• County Ag Extension
• State of Iowa