Posted on 06/02/2014 7:18:13 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.
“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”
I’m really just bringing this to your attention for this quote alone. Voting and paying are different endeavors entirely. Often, when one has to pay for the things one has voted to fund, that decision becomes less flippant. This is a comment, less on the specifics of Texas’ or Austin’s tax system than the blaring disconnect between liberals in Austin who are voting for higher taxes and the actual paying of the taxes. Which, as it turns out, is painful, discouraging, and can be a detriment to the fabric of the city.
In Texas, there are more than 3,900 localities that impose property taxes, including school districts, counties, and special districts. Texas’ property tax burden has grown from approximately 1 percent of value in the early 1980s to nearly 3 percent today.
The rising burden from property tax is worse for the housing-rich but income-poor elderly homeowners. For example, elderly homeowners tend to move more often to reduce their property tax burden, which is an additional cost of owning a home for those who can least afford to move.
Interestingly, another reason voters hate property taxes is because they are more “salient.” A salient tax means that the burden is transparent, easy to understand, and hard to avoid. If paid directly, property taxes are found to be more salient compared with sales taxes applied at checkout or income taxes withheld from a paycheck.
In 2012, the free-market think tank suggested swapping the local property tax for a sales tax:
New research suggests that if Texas eliminates its local property tax system, ranked as the 14th most oppressive in the nation, and instead replaces those lost revenues with an adjusted sales tax, then the ensuing flood of capital investment and business activity could ignite the Texas economy for years to come.
That’s right, just by changing how Texas governments collect public dollars—but not how much they spend—the Legislature can give the economy and people’s wallets a major boost.
By how much, you ask? Our estimates suggest quite a bit.
Either way, I don’t think Gretchen Gardner is ever going to make the connection between her voting pattern and her bill.
Ignorant liberals all across the country should review this entire thread -before- voting in all future elections. Of course, this can't happen.
We'll just have to hope that liberals will wake up when they can no longer pay the higher bills they are and will continue to receive in their mailbox.
Hey HotAir, I don’t want taxes to be more hidden
I’m from California, but listening in to the conversation in Texas they missed Gretchen Gardner’s website. She is a native Texan and fine art’s major from U.T. who apparently makes a living painting pet portraits. Gardner’s self description: “I live, paint and eat cupcakes in Austin TX with 2 dogs, 1 cat and a mortgage.” For employment history she lists: “artist.”
Zillow estimate her 1-BR, 1-Bath, 1,008 square foot home built in 1934 on a 16,552 square foot lot is worth $525,000, or $520 per square foot!!! The median list price home in 78704 zip code is $539,000.
Home prices dropped in the Bouldin 78704 neighborhood in 2011 from $385,000 to about $310,000, then they climbed back up to $385,000 level in 2012, and now are hovering around $415,000. Gentrification is the apparent reason for the upward price trend because the housing stock is old.
In California we have what are called “underwater homes” with mortgages higher than their market values. In Austin 78704 there must be “overwater homes” with mortgages way under the market values as prices are rising because buyers were willing to overpay to get into a trendy neighborhood. Now the tax bill is coming due.
Austin, like much of California, has land use controls (open space preserves, city incorporation restrictions, zoning) that restrict the supply of new homes while demands increases.
She is the one who will pay for the bailout too
exactly
Poor old Gretchen.Guess she’ll need the NEA to increase
her grant
LOLOLOL.
Thank you so much for the ping to this article.
I have kin in Austin.
Most property taxes go to support the decaying government school system. They suck up more and more money while education suffers. The best thing to happen to this country would be the privatization of education at all leves. Let the liberals indoctrinate their own kiddies... if they have any.
Maybe she would like to hear from you:
http://gretchenmakesart.weebly.com/contact.html
I invited her to join the discussion here.
I hope the poor things aren’t libs. LOL!
Now she’ll sell her home at a profit, complain about the taxes she may pay on that and move to another community where she’ll do all she can to vote in liberals and help ruin it, too.
LOL!!! What a DUMBASS!!! Hey Stupid, Elections have Consequences!!
Problem is, she’ll move to a different cheaper area and vote in a ton of NEW TAXES!!
I’m sure a number of us Michiganians would be glad to send our undocumented democrap governor down to show Texans how you redistribute other people’s money to bail out idiots like those apparently inhabiting the People’s Republic of Austin. He’s doing a “spectacular” job doing just that to bail out the sewer formerly known as Detroit right now.
And the parks Gretchen voted for are kind of a double taxation. The land is now off the tax rolls and can’t generate any revenue thus putting a bigger burden on her. I wonder how many public works projects would get passed if at the end of the amendment it read “If you vote for this you will pay more in taxes”
TEXAS IS OUT OF CONTROL WITH PROPERTY TAXES!
Texans don’t even have the right to petition the state with signatures to put anything on the ballot to change this!
My heart is in Texas where I was born but my body pays LOW TAXES(only 1.025%)here in California.
In the 1970s California was out of control with property taxes too! Thanks to Howard Jarvis and friends, tax control was put on the ballot and passed.
Don’t give me the Texas doesn’t have income tax line... If you make less than 50k your California state income tax is less than $500 per year. Your air conditioning bill in Texas will be higher than that!
Texas has a school property tax, a county property tax, a city property, and a road property tax! California only has one property tax.
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