From the WSJ:

New Jersey Moves Up The Property Tax Charts

New Jersey, infamous for having some of the highest property taxes in the U.S., is only getting more so. The state has inched its way up on a list of places with steep taxes as a slice of home value.

That move, reported in new census data, reflects that property taxes overall remain steepest in the Northeast and a few other pockets of the U.S.

Gerald Prante, an economist at The Tax Foundation in Washington who has written about the data based on the 2008 American Community Survey, says New Jersey is second from the top on the list of states with high median real estate taxes divided by median home value - up from fifth on that list in 2007. (Texas remains at the top).

The change seems largely due to New Jersey home values dropping, according to Prante.

As if that isn’t distinction enough, New Jersey continues as the overall property tax champ: It again tops the list of states with highest property tax by dollar amount. Right behind it are Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island.

On the other end of the spectrum are Tennessee, New Mexico, Kentucky and Oklahoma, which have some of the lowest taxes.

In New Jersey, median real estate taxes paid in 2008 were $6,320; in Connecticut, $4,603; in New Hampshire, $4,501; and New York, $3,622, according to the data.

Strikingly lower are the numbers in states at the bottom of the list: In Louisiana, for example, which ranked 50th, median taxes were $188. In Tennessee, the figure was $924; in New Mexico, $843; in Kentucky, $823; and Oklahoma, $762.

In the Northeast, high property tax states also have high per capita income. In fact, the highest property tax bills are usually found where incomes are highest, according to Prante.

That is borne out by new data on counties where taxes are high. New York’s Westchester County topped the list, with a median of $8,890, followed by Nassau, also in New York, with $8,628, and Hunterdon, in New Jersey, with $8,492.