U.S. homeowners saw their property taxes rise more slowly last year compared with 2023, while the number of counties where the average bill tops $10,000 continued its steady increase, according to a new study. 

The average U.S. homeowner paid $4,172 in property taxes last year, according to a report by real estate data firm ATTOM. That’s an increase of 2.7% from 2023 — roughly in step with headline inflation, which was 2.9% in the period, and down from the 4.1% average tax increase in 2023. 

The analysis is based on bills for 85.7 million single-family homes nationwide. Breaking them down regionally, the report shows that 19 counties had an average bill that exceeded $10,000 last year, the most on record. That suggests plenty of homeowners in those areas would need to come up with $1,000 a month or more, once insurance is included, even if their mortgage is paid off. 

New York was excluded from ATTOM’s 2024 analysis due to data availability limitations. Almost half of the most expensive counties that did feature in the report are in New Jersey — where the statewide average bill topped the $10,000 threshold — including high-population areas such as Bergen, Monmouth and Middlesex. 

Other places with high average taxes include the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area in California — where the average bill was $12,293 — along with San Mateo and San Francisco. 

By state, the highest average tax bills tended to be in the Northeast. Top-ranked New Jersey was followed by Connecticut ($8,402), New Hampshire ($7,723),  Massachusetts ($7,720) and California ($7,131).

In its 2023 analysis, which included data for New York, ATTOM’s data showed that counties such as Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester all had average property taxes that exceeded $10,000.

Harvard University pushed back against the U.S. government after President Donald Trump said the school should lose its tax-exempt status, warning that such a move would endanger its ability to carry out its mission and threaten higher education in America. 

“There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” university spokesman Jason Newton said in a statement, adding that such a move would damage Harvard’s medical research efforts and ability to offer financial aid for students. He also cautioned that using this “instrument” would have “grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”

Trump has escalated his fight with the oldest and richest U.S. university after the school refused to bow to his administration’s demands. The U.S. froze more than $2.2 billion of multiyear grants this week, Trump suggested the Internal Revenue Service should tax the university as a “political entity” and then his homeland security chief threatened to prevent the school from enrolling foreign students. 

The White House has sought to overhaul elite education arguing that schools need to combat antisemitism after protests against Israel broke out on campuses across the U.S. in the wake of Hamas’s attack on the Jewish state and the resulting war in Gaza — but its efforts have sparked concern the administration is trying to suppress free speech and imperil academic freedom. 

Harvard president Alan Garber said the university was willing to work with the administration to fight antisemitism, but the U.S. demands made clear that wasn’t their intent. Instead Harvard said the government was seeking to determine what the university teaches and who it hires and admits — and that it won’t “surrender its independence or its constitutional rights.”

CNN first reported the IRS was looking at revoking the tax-exempt status, a move that would deal a significant financial blow to the university and send a message to other institutions that they face a similar risk. A Bloomberg News analysis estimated that Harvard’s tax benefits totaled at least $465 million in 2023.

The White House hasn’t yet formally confirmed it’s pursuing the IRS path, which would almost certainly face legal challenges. 

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said the IRS was investigating Harvard’s tax status before Trump called for the school to pay taxes, adding that “any forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the president.”

With a $53 billion endowment, Harvard has emerged as the highest-profile university to contest Trump’s attempts to force sweeping changes. Other university leaders, including Princeton’s, have expressed support for Harvard’s stance, but they also face pressure from the White House. The administration has already canceled $400 million in federal money to Columbia University and frozen dozens of research contracts at Princeton, Cornell and Northwestern universities. 

While Harvard’s rebuke sparked cheers from Democrats and many Harvard alumni, including former President Barack Obama, the university’s resistance has come at a cost that could spiral. U.S. agencies previously said they are reviewing about $9 billion of grants and contracts to the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school. 

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also threatened to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students if it doesn’t comply with sending records to the government related to foreign student visa holders. This would threaten Harvard’s ability to attract students from foreign countries, which make up more than 27% of the university’s student body in this academic year.

“Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” Noem said in a statement.

A Harvard spokesperson said in a statement that the federal scrutiny, including funding cuts and the threat to its tax status, “follows on the heels of our statement that Harvard will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

“We will continue to comply with the law and expect the Administration to do the same,” according to the statement.

The Trump administration is reportedly making plans to shut down the Internal Revenue Service’s Direct File free tax prep system next year.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday about the plans, which come amid widespread layoffs at the IRS. Elon Musk had posted on X in February that he had “deleted” 18F, a digital services team that helped build the Direct File system ahead of its initial pilot test last year. The IRS staff who had taken over development of the program were reportedly told last month to end their work on developing the system for next tax season. The U.S. Digital Service that also worked on developing Direct File has been renamed the U.S. DOGE Service after a takeover by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, blamed the move on lobbying by the tax prep software industry, as well as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“No one should have to pay huge fees just to file their taxes,” Wyden said in a statement Wednesday. “Direct File was a massive success, saving taxpayers millions in fees, saving them time and cutting out an unnecessary middleman that took money out of Americans’ pockets for no good reason,” Wyden said. “Trump and Secretary Bessent are robbing regular American families to pay back lobbyists that spend millions to make tax filing more expensive and more difficult.”

The Direct File system expanded from pilot tests in 12 states last year to 25 states this year, aided by the nonprofit group Code for America and its FileYourStateTaxes project.  A survey of over 1,000 Direct File and FileYourStateTaxes users reportedly found that 98% of respondents said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the programs, according to the Federal News Network. Last year, former IRS commissioner Danny Werfel announced plans to make the Direct File program permanent, but the program has been repeatedly attacked by Republican lawmakers in Congress and the tax prep industry.