Wealth Migration Fuels Palm Beach’s Million-Dollar Tax Bills

Palm Beach’s luxury real estate boom is fueling a rare phenomenon: the million-dollar property tax bill.

Of all the affluent homeowners on the island, no one has a higher bill than billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin, whose property tax bill is more than $10 million, according to Bloomberg. Griffin is one of at least 60 billionaire homeowners in Palm Beach, but few have island holdings that rival his.

Griffin, whose net worth is $45 billion, according to Forbes, has spent at least $350 million on a sprawling assemblage at 60 Blossom Way, where he is building a massive residential compound for his mother. The estate is part of his more than $1 billion property portfolio in South Florida.

Griffin is not the only Palm Beach homeowner whose property tax bill tops $1 million. Other members of that club include designer Tommy Hilfiger, a frequent real estate investor and home flipper on the island; billionaire hedge funder John Paulson, who bought an oceanfront mansion in 2021 for $109.6 million; and billionaire cosmetics heir William Lauder, who bought the late Rush Limbaugh’s oceanfront compound for $155 million in 2032.

All these hefty tax bills mean a serious increase in cash flow for the Town of Palm Beach, which has an estimated 9,000 residents and about 2,500 homes.

“It’s just been an enormous boom to our whole area,” Dorothy Jacks, Palm Beach County’s property appraiser, told the outlet. “I don’t know that anything really surprises me anymore.”

Palm Beach County’s property tax bills totalled $359 million last year, marking a 75 percent increase from 2018, according to analysis by the outlet. The Town of Palm Beach alone collected $84 million in property taxes last year. In 2020, it collected just $66 million.

University of Chicago professor Christopher Berry said property taxes differ from progressive taxes in one big way: everyone pays the same rate.

“If I’m making $100 million a year, I’m paying a higher rate than somebody making $100,000 a year. But if I have a $100 million home, I’m paying the same rate as somebody with a $100,000 home,” Berry told the outlet. “That doesn’t change the shock, you know, of a million-dollar property tax.”

–– Kate Hinsche