Worth County Assessor
From the Assessor’s Office 04/01/2025
Worth County property owners will soon be receiving their 2025 assessment notices in the mail and may have questions regarding the increase from the prior assessment year. Here is what you need to know:
Iowa Code requires property subject to taxation to be assessed at 100% market value. Every odd numbered year is known as a reassessment year in that all property is subject to a change in value, depending on the market activity during the prior year. Market value is determined by the activity between buyers and sellers. In other words, if I were to put my house on the market today what would it sell for?
Worth County residential properties will see an average increase of 13.5% in value. Now don’t panic, that does not mean your taxes payable will increase near that much, mostly in part due to the roll back which is set by the Iowa Department of Revenue. The roll back was established to limit statewide growth for a given class of property to 3%. As statewide growth increases above 3%, the roll back decreases to limit the growth in taxable valuations.
Residential actual examples in Worth County:
Ex: Assessed Year: 2022 2023
Assessed Value: $99,078 $108,230
Roll Back: x .546501 x .463428
Taxable Value: $54,146 $50,157
Ex: Assessed Year: 2022 2023
Assessed Value: $329,446 $381,563
Roll Back: x .546501 x .463428
Taxable Value: $180,043 $176,827
The taxable values are used to spread the tax askings from all the various taxing bodies, including but not limited to, schools, cities, county, townships and other entities. Levy rates are simply a multiplier that is determined by dividing the tax askings by the total taxable value for a given taxing district. Tax askings are the driving force that determines if property taxes are increasing, leveling or decreasing.
The Assessor’s office is not involved in the equation to determine property taxes payable and can’t stress enough, the importance of attending budget meetings for the various taxing bodies.
The current 2025 assessed values being received will be a part of this equation for fiscal year July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2027.
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In Iowa, ag land value is primarily based on its productivity and net earning capacity. Ag land values are based on a 5-yr productivity using the CSR2 and factors such as soil quality, crop yield and local markets. All this information is given to the Assessor’s office from the USDA Farm Services Agency.
Ag land productivity value increased from $1,880.16 to $2,634.29 per acre based on the productivity years of 2019-2023. Some of the reasons for the increase might be due to covid payments which are considered as income by the Iowa Department of Revenue.
Ag land value examples in Worth County:
The following are actual changes in land values for the same parcel from 2013-2025.
Parcel 1: Assessed Year Assessed Value Parcel 2: Assessed Year Assessed Value
2025 $ 51,503 2025 $ 111,812
2023 $ 37,553 2023 $ 81,526
2021 $ 30,619 2021 $ 59,545
2019 $ 30,384 2019 $ 67,439
2017 $ 51,859 2017 $ 97,382
2015 $ 63,780 2015 $ 94,570
2013 $ 67,146 2013 $ 69,619
The Assessor’s office encourages anyone that has any questions to stop in the Assessor’s office, call or email at the following:
Worth County Court House
Assessor’s Office
1000 Central Ave
Northwood, IA 50459
641-324-1198
