The old saying goes there are two things that you can't escape in life: death and taxes. The latter -- the first Nye County tax bill for the 2006-07 fiscal year -- arrived in the mail this week. The first quarterly installment is due by Aug. 21.

Pahrump property owners will experience less pain this year. Their combined tax rate declined from $3.22 per $100 of property valuation in the 2005-06 fiscal year to $3.12 per $100 of valuation this year.

Nye County Treasurer Gary Budahl said the tax for the Pahrump library debt has been paid off, which had added 10.4 cents per $100 of valuation.

The Pahrump rate is the lowest in the county. The tax rate ranges up to a high of $3.65 per $100 in Amargosa Valley and Tonopah. The state maximum cap is $3.64, but in some cases voters passed a local override to fund different projects.

"We sent about 56,000 bills. Only Clark and Washoe County has more parcels than we do," Budahl said. "The total of all taxes that were billed for the counties, schools, the towns, is going to be about $36 million."

All county property owners pay a tax of $1.34 per $100 of valuation to Nye County, of which 98.8 cents per $100 goes to the general fund.

The Nye County School District tax accounts for about an equal amount, $1.33 per $100, of which 75 cents per $100 goes to the Distributive School Account, 58.5 cents per $100 goes to pay school district debt. The state adds a tax of 17 cents per $100 of valuation.

Those three tax rates -- which make up the lion's share of the total taxes at $2.85 per $100 of valuation -- are unchanged from last year.

A variety of smaller taxes add up to the total. Pahrump taxes property at 22.5 cents per $100 of valuation; to that is added a Pahrump library tax rate of 3.8 cents per $100 and a Pahrump swimming pool tax rate of .07 cents per $100.

Amargosa Valley has the highest town tax rate of 49.4 cents per $100 of valuation; the Amargosa Library district adds another hefty 31 cents per $100 to that tax rate.

"We don't have a lot of large revenue sources, and we have a growing community," Amargosa Valley Town Board Chairman Jan Cameron said. She said the town tax rate pays for a park, maintaining four county-owned buildings and the salaries of three staff members.

Cameron said the only sizeable commercial properties that can be taxed in Amargosa Valley are the IMV mine or International Mining Ventures, which mines clay for kitty litter and lining irrigation ditches, and the Ponderosa Dairy. The town has to keep the library open, Cameron said, noting the Beatty library almost closed after the Bullfrog Mine, a major taxpayer in that community, ceased operations.

Beatty has a tax rate of 21 cents per $100, while the Beatty Library District taxes another 27.4 cents per $100. The combined Beatty tax rate is $3.63 per $100 of valuation.

Other town tax rates include: Gabbs, 48.4 cents per $100; Tonopah, 36.4 cents per $100; Manhattan, 31.6 cents per $100; and Round Mountain, 31.6 cents per $100.

The combined Tonopah tax rate of $3.65 per $100 of valuation is just above the state cap of $3.64 because voters approved the extension of a 10.7 cent per $100 tax override originally used for improvements at Joe Friel Park, which is now being used for parks and recreation, according to Town Administrative Supervisor Susan Dudley. Without that tax, the Tonopah tax rate would be 25.7 cents per $100 of valuation.

Owners of property from Beatty northward are paying a tax rate of 29.9 cents per $100 of valuation as part of a hospital district for Nye Regional Medical Center.

The combined Nye County tax rate of $1.34 per $100 of valuation includes a number of other taxes besides the general fund. It includes 10 cents per $100 of valuation for juvenile probation; 8.2 cents per $100 for a medical and general indigent fund; five cents per $100 for capital projects; 3.9 cents per $100 for health clinics; two cents per $100 for a dedicated county medical fund; 1.5 cents per $100 for a state medical indigent fund; 1.5 cents per $100 for the agricultural extensive office; and smaller tax amounts for the Pahrump museum, 911 emergency communications system and road fund.

There is no discount for early payment of taxes. The second quarterly tax payment is due Oct. 2, the third quarterly payment is due Jan. 2, 2007, and the final payment is due March 5, 2007. There is a 10-day grace period. A 4 percent penalty for late payment is charged after one quarter, 5 percent if the property owner is two quarters late, 6 percent for being three quarters late, and a 7 percent penalty for someone a year late in paying property taxes.

In Nevada, property owners pay taxes on the assessed value of a property, which is 35 percent of the taxable value. Budahl said Nye County has almost $1.2 billion in assessed property values, of which $956 million is in Pahrump Valley.