Unfortunately, reducing government spending is not a viable option.
Unfortunately, reducing government spending is not a viable option.
Obama’s coming inflation will fix those falling values quick.
We looked at a home in foreclosure recently (the bank wants $64,000...the previous owners trashed it...but it’s in a neighborhood of $200-300 thousand dollar homes.
The taxes, we were informed, would not be reassessed downward, at least not this year. So the taxes on the property will add over $400 to the mortgage and insurance.
No wonder they’re having a hard time moving foreclosed property!
I wonder if the Fed will plan to include those asking for a resassessment of real estate taxes within the new profile of potential domestic terrorists?
The origin of this problem was that too many local governments and school boards looked at the rapid rise in property values as a windfall.
There was no reason why those local budgets should have soared, just because property values did.
Fairfax County VA where I live has an annual assessment program, and our property assessment dropped around 10% from last year. The county-wide average drop was around 15% if I recall correctly, but our neighborhood held up better than areas of townhouses and the like.
The County Board of Supervisors, seeing that the average assessment dropped 15% promptly increased the tax rate by 15% or so, thereby maintaining the same revenue from property tax. The result is that we see a 5% increase in 2009 tax dollars we must pay compared with 2008.
Other tax revenue dropped for the county (the county percentage of sales tax, for example) so I suppose we peasants should be grateful that our lords and masters in the Fairfax County offices didn’t try to make up all the revenue shortfall with property tax increases.
Jack
Taxpayers exist only to be a milk-cow for government. Don’t expect anything but a crack in the skull from them.
The secret to dealing with issues like the one you are alluding to, teacher’s unions, is to pit one part of the liberal bureaucracy against another.
For example, introduce a bill that allows local residents to ‘earmark’ tax dollars for local education, with a commensurate amount being deducted from the state and federal government tax revenues. Thus the school administrators and teachers in that district will see potential access to more money. This could even be done at the state level.
The federal government, of course, will not stand for losing any tax dollars, so they will oppose. Thus the local teachers and education administrators see the federal government as taking money away from them. Run federal candidates who support state and local rights, and you have just sucked away parts of a traditional democratic voting block. There are tons of examples where this can be implemented. Divide and conquer has been a very successful ploy of the left. Fight fire with fire.
The most ask question at court houses across the US.
values go down, the rate of taxation goes up
the fix is in
the govt is a cruel landlord, too. try not paying yor taxes and see who owns “your” property
Oh yeah, it only makes sense that if the value of your home is less, the tax has to be less...
So — go for it — people.... :-)
although not as hard hit as the rest of the state, we went to 100% valuation to align with the rest of the county assessment system a few years ago and even though my taxable value went up, my actual tax bill went down. not much but down. i'm afraid it's the calm before the storm.
The result will be a lowering of the assessed valuation and an increase in the tax rate. In the end the tax will be greater.
Mandating the contraction of government spending is the only way to reduce taxes. We have a fat chance of that occurring.
that is what they should do and vote the elected scum out of office.
LOL
IT IS posible to reduce GOvt spending.
TUSD - the large school district in Tucson - is laying off 650 employees, teachers, aids and other staff.
Why should Govt be the only organization in the US to miss out on the “hopechaneie” thing?
How about flat property taxes, that would neither rise or fall with ‘property value’, but use a combination of (1)# of residential properties, (2) # of commercial properties, (3) miles of paved road and amount of road-frontage for each property, (4)# and volume [how many baths & kitchens] of sewage demands for each property unit.
From those stats, one could devise some formulas to produce a set of flat property taxes.
Some examples:
(1)* residential factor [1] + (2) * commercial factor [1 +?] = number of ‘property units’, * general administration $ rate = X amount of ‘property taxes’ for general administration, police & fire; and the individual property owners tax is their portion of the whole, as either 1/X for a residential unit or 1+?/X for a commercial unit;
a # [in fractions to 4 decimal places, representing a single property’s portion of the whole] of road frontage for a property * commercial factor/or * residential factor * road maintenance $ rate = amount of ‘property taxes’ for road maintenance, street cleaning, storm drain maintenance & clearing - relative to a single property
# of sewage contribution units [# of kitchens + # of baths] * sewage $ rate = property taxes for sewage treatment services
A total ‘flat property tax’ would be the sum of the independently measured components, like in the samples above, each of which is calculated on flat rates and measurement factors attributable to each property, regardless of ‘market value’.
This type of system would end the tyranny of the artificiality of ‘appraisals’ and taxes based on them, as well as the problem that such appraisals are never kept up-to-date in the first place.
For commercial property owners it would mean they do not escape ‘their fair share’ of taxes, just because they let their property run down, and for residential owners ‘their fair share’ is based on their ‘fair share’ of services rendered NOT what they paid for their house.
This type of system also makes the relationship of local budget increases to property tax increases direct and transparent, because each component of the tax is directly related to an area of the local budget and nothing is hidden by any adjustment in the amount of tax due to differences in property values, either over time or between different properties.
With this type of system, setting caps on budget increases based on inflation is easier to establish and monitor.
[notice, under my assumptions, a house with more road frontage and more kitchens and baths would pay more for the kinds of services that support roads and sewers; thus some larger homes would pay more than some smaller homes; but rich or poor, all would pay the same flat rates for the cost of general services from the city offices and police and fire protection]
Ding, ding ding....we have a WINNER!
Regardless of values, they have to raise X dollars to cover their nut.
bump