Every State of the Union assesses property taxes on homes, condos, apartments, and even vacant land, in which taxes received in aggregate as reported by the usnews.com were, "… the leading category of revenue for state and local governments, yielding 34 percent of tax collections." This means that property taxes are actually more important to State and local government budgets than their respective progressive personal income tax yet, property taxes are not progressive in their application.
Not only are property taxes not progressive, but the application of these taxes, provides a lot of power to government officials as to how properties are assessed and valued, which creates the basis for the levied tax amount. So too, in some States, there is also a millage rate imposed per thousand dollars of value of the property, in which, when property values go down via a recession and are thereby adjusted downward by tax assessors, the millage rate invariably goes up, so that often the end result, is that while the value of the home has decreased, the property tax capture by State authorities has not been appreciably reduced. Then, there are States that cap the limit that property taxes can raise on a home owner in a given year, which, is very beneficial for owners that bought their homes well before home prices increased dramatically, for they will forever pay "below market" rates as compared to later generations that will pay the "going rate" for making their purchase at a later date.
When it comes to an income tax, in general, the more money that you earn, the higher your overall tax rate will be, which is known as a progressive tax. However, for home owners, the amount of their property taxation will vary year by year, not because of their personal income, but by virtue of the home increasing in value, as assessed by government officials, so that, in effect, the income of a home owner is not relevant to the property taxation that they will pay on a yearly basis. Not only that, the assessment of the value of a home, which creates its property tax basis, is made by government officials in which, despite "independent" boards of local home owners and such, this assessment is always going to favor those government officials and their perspective of the prevailing "market value" for they depend upon this revenue to meet governmental budget commitments.
In addition, the general property tax rate that States charge their residents isn’t set in stone, for like most taxes this burden has increased over the years, which isn't surprising, considering that property taxes bring in the most revenue for State and local budgets. Then, too, special categories of citizens will pay lower property taxes than others simply because they are senior citizens, or veterans, so that the overall property tax burden isn't uniform for all.
Finally, when it comes to a significant swath of Americans, especially the middle class, their home is their biggest material asset, in which, whether their income rises or falls, or their personal situation gets better or worse, they will have to pay whatever the going rate is for their property taxes, affordable or not, whereas, if those taxes were assessed in a progressive manner, somewhat akin to how the income tax is structured, their tax burden would be more appropriately structured. That is to say, higher home price purchases, should have a higher progressive property tax rate attached to them, so that the wealthy would pay a materially higher property tax rate than the middle class, rather than our current system, which is regressive in nature, and unfairly burdens those that are simply trying to keep a toehold of the American dream.