New Hampshire residents aren't alone in pushing for caps on their property taxes. Across the United States, taxpayers have embarked on efforts to cap taxes or limit tax increases.

The phenomenon first gained steam as real estate prices rose, as higher property values translated into higher taxes. But now that real estate prices have fallen, many taxpayers aren't happy assessed property values often still reflect boom-time prices.

The Wall Street Journal, which yesterday published an overview of cap efforts, noted the protests of property owners in Hampton, upset over tax hikes that for one homeowner hit 30 percent year-over-year. About 100 town residents are advocating for a reassessment of property values there, the Journal said.

In its story, the Journal recounted protests and tax cap proposals from Arizona to Indiana to New York state. But even that wasn't an exhaustive list.

In December, angry property owners rallied outside city hall in Hoboken, N.J., according to local news blog Hoboken Now. Also that month, The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, S.C., reported on a tax revolt brewing in nearby Brunswick County, N.C.

And in Oklahoma City, the Associated Press reported on the efforts of a state lawmaker trying to lower the amount annual property taxes could be hiked, warning of a "taxpayer revolt" if state law wasn't changed.

One reason the issue hits especially deep in other states is because other states levy a sales tax, an income tax or both. New Hampshire has neither.

According to the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank, New Hampshire residents paid an average of 7.6 percent of their income in state or local taxes to their own or other states in 2008. That burden was 46th-lowest in the nation, and well below the U.S. average of 9.7 percent.

That 7.6 percent rate is up from its 2001 low of 7.3 percent, but lower than in the past. The burden peaked at 9.7 percent in 1992 and was above 8 percent in the late 1970s, data from the group show.

However, New Hampshire's property taxes are second-highest in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation -- not only in terms of money (a median $4,390 per year in 2007) but also in terms of percentage of income, at 5.99 percent. They are fourth-highest in the nation in terms of their percentage of a house's value.