Al Charlson is a North Central Iowa farm kid, lifelong Iowan, and retired bank trust officer. This column was first published in the Waverly Newspapers.
We recently received the 2025-26 real estate tax statement for our farmland in my “home county.” The 11 percent increase must have felt like a punch to a lot of our neighbors back home at this time of corn and soybean prices below the cost of production. It hits particularly hard for younger farmers struggling to provide for their families, make farm payments, and maintain their machinery.
As a note to my non-farm friends and neighbors, the assessment of Iowa farmland for real estate taxes is entirely different than it is for our homes. Home assessments are based on recent sale prices of comparable homes. Since 1977 Iowa farmland has been assessed based on soil productivity (estimated value of crops produced minus production costs).
That makes a big difference. Based on the Bremer County Assessor’s valuation, our Waverly home is worth about 1.4 times the estimated fair market value of our “home county” farmland. The non-city portion of 2025-26 taxes on our Waverly home are about 4.4 times the taxes on our farmland. In my opinion this accommodation for agriculture, the base of Iowa’s economy, is reasonable and justified.
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