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Yes I understand but that becomes an appraisal thing doesn't it. Plus you have many more rental units on the same sized piece of property that a single family unit occupies thus the taxes are spread. A 100x150 (15,000 sqft) lot versus a little 700 sq foot apartment... Let's see (15,000 sqft) that's the equivalent of about 20 of those apts, and now stack them up to three stories, that's 60 rental units paying taxes on the same 15,000 sqft of property that one home owner is paying. Yep I understand .....

Well, sure, if all you consider is sq. ft. but....

The value of those 60 rental units (& the income generated) is way more than my 10,000 sq. ft. lot and 800 sq. ft. house.

The point is that the landlord isn't made to pay an anywhere near an equivalent percentage of property/school/use tax on his 60 rental units and therefore doesn't pass the costs on to the co renter families living in them.

If your thought was true, my county should be awash in cash due to the burgening rental population (many Hispanic recent arrivals, BTW) and should be building schools by the bunch with all that rental generated tax income.

That's not happening because the rental tax money just isn't there in a sufficient amount to cover their costs. Hence my property tax bill went up almost 50% this year and they are going to try it again next year we are told.