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The Quarterly Survey of Property Tax Collections is one of three parts of the Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax Revenue. The U.S. Congress, federal agencies, state and local governments, education and research organizations, and the general public employ results from these surveys. Some major uses include the following:

a. Development of government component of the gross domestic product estimates
b. Development of the national income accounts
c. Tax policy research

For more information, visit our Information for Respondents page. Or email us at ewd.qtax@census.gov

This is a voluntary survey.  We estimate that this survey should take an average of 15 minutes to complete.

If you have received the Quarterly Survey of Property Tax Collections, we have determined this government is one of the approximately 90,000 local governments in the United States. Out of the approximately 90,000 local governments, a smaller representative sample is drawn and sent a copy of our survey in order to compile a national estimate of local tax collections every quarter.

If you have received a copy of the Quarterly Survey of Property Tax Collections it is because this government entity is in scope of our definition of a government. We define a government to be “an organized entity which, in addition to having governmental character, has sufficient discretion in the management of its own affairs to distinguish it as separate from the administrative structure of any other governmental unit.” 

For further details on the definition and characteristics of a government entity for Census Bureau reporting, refer to the Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual.

If you believe this government entity does not fall within the scope of our definition of a government, please contact a member of the Quarterly Tax Survey team. 

To ensure the name of this government is properly corrected and recorded in our database, contact a member of the Quarterly Tax Survey team.

If you have already submitted data for this government and would like to make a correction, please contact a member of the Quarterly Tax Survey team.

We recently changed from user IDs and passwords to using the Respondent Portal. To begin, go to https://portal.census.gov, create an account or sign-in with your already existing account, and link yourself to your survey. You link your account to your survey by an authentication code sent to you from the Census Bureau. Once you have this code, click on the “Add Authentication Code” button under “My Surveys.” Enter and submit your unique 12-digit code. Please visit How Do I Get Started? for additional information. If you are having trouble logging into the web collection system, please contact a member of the Quarterly Tax survey team.

The U.S. Census Bureau is streamlining operations to conserve taxpayer time and money as we measure our nation's economy through surveys such as the Quarterly Survey of Property Tax Collections and Quarterly Survey of Selected Non-Property Taxes. This includes moving from paper-based data collection to online-based data collection operations. If you need a survey preview to compile your data before reporting online, go to the link below to Preview Survey Questions. If you have any problems reporting online, you can contact a member of the Quarterly Tax survey team.

When you submitted your data through the web application, you received a Submission Confirmation screen that you were able to print. If you did not see this screen, then you have not submitted your data.

If you have submitted your survey on the web or over the phone you can contact a member of the Quarterly Tax survey team to verify your submission.

Participation in this important survey is voluntary. However, it is very important that we have your cooperation to ensure the quality of our data.