Abolish the Property Tax

Thoughts on "Reforming" the Property Tax

2011-02-17T21:02:00.002-05:00

To All Those Property Tax Reformers Out There,

Thank you for your efforts to reduce the property tax burden. The Property Tax itself cannot be fixed, however. In New York State, there has been much debate and some actual legislative testimony given to the ideas of a Property Tax Cap, and a "Circuit Breaker". "Reform" or "improvement", whether in the form of a circuit breaker or cap or phony-baloney relief check, "STAR" program, "EMPIRE ZONE", condo tax break or PILOT, are nothing more than a shift of the burden.

I disagree with shifting the burden of funding to "others", like the supposed "rich". As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "The ordaining of laws in favor of one part (of the nation), to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."

The major problems with the property tax are the cost of it due to unrestrained spending by localities, the complete and utter unfairness of the assessment process, and the foolish efforts to "reform" or "improve" the property tax itself.

The only way to truly "fix" the property tax, is to abolish it.

Please place your energy into abolishing the property tax and the complexities of assessment and income won't need to be measured.

Thank you,

Chris Andrus

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson

www.abolishthepropertytax.blogspot.com

Stop Trashing America's Future

2011-01-05T10:25:00.003-05:00

John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for The Daily Beast. He is the author of "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America."

John Avlon:
- It's become fashionable to say the American Dream is dead or dying
- He says such talk is a reflection of today's difficult economic times
- Avlon says America has faced much worse problems and has found ways to thrive
- He says diversity, innovation, freedom are powerful reasons to think future is bright

New York (CNN) -- Here's a New Year's resolution for the nation in 2011: Stop predicting the death of the American Dream.

This has become a popular parlor game in recent years, boosted by the malaise that always comes with a bad economy. Article after article speculates that America's best days might be behind us. It's also a symptom of the broader narcissism of the baby boom generation -- now that they're hitting 65, they feel like America must be sun-setting as well. It's not.

Yes, we've got serious challenges to face as a nation. But what era in American history has been pain-free? Heroic moments come with hard times.

We often glamorize the past, in large part because it's past. We know how it all turned out -- usually for the best. And if the past seemed comparatively pure and simple, that's because the people doing the reminiscing were children at the time, comparatively pure and simple themselves.

Particularly since the election of President Barack Obama, talk radio has been full of fantasies about the 1940s and '50s, a time of reigning small-town American values that are, according to this script, currently under conscious assault.

It remains unspoken that this rural and suburban idyll took place in a still-segregated America -- an inconvenient fact if you take the word freedom beyond a bumper sticker. Women's equality and gay rights were a distant dream. What passed for diversity was a measure of white ethnic immigrants being slowly and often reluctantly accepted by the WASP establishment.

All of which is a way of saying that America is always changing, we are always evolving -- often in fits and starts -- but usually in the right direction.

That itself is a reflection of the expanding franchise of the American dream. My grandparents' generation, dubbed "the greatest generation," was great precisely because it overcame huge obstacles. First, they faced the Great Depression and then World War II.

For the better part of two decades, Americans witnessed civilized nations being overtaken by demagogues and dueling utopian fantasies of communism and fascism that ultimately left millions of people murdered in their wake. Conventional wisdom among the chattering class was that democracy could not compete with dictatorships because of the inherent inefficiencies that came with freedom.

These were not simple times. They were piled high with difficulty, a clear and present danger that dwarfs even the serious threats we still face from radical Islamic terrorists.

We know that civilization will ultimately defeat these violent fanatics even if there are future terrorist attacks. It is a reason for vigilance and resilience, not internal accusations of weakness or defeatism. And the rise of major nations such as China and India as economic competitors is a dream of harmony compared with the rise of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the 20th century.

The baby boomer generation confronted one of the worst years in American history -- 1968 -- when Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated within months of each other.

American cities burned in riots that summer, and we were embroiled in Vietnam, with thousands of casualties each month. Whatever turbulence we face right now, it is far short of that tumultuous summer.

And the 1960s were a walk in the park compared with the 1860s, when the nation erupted into the bloodiest war in our history, with hundreds of thousands of Americans killed on both sides. One of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated days after the war ended, to be succeeded by one of our worst, Andrew Johnson, an alcoholic from Tennessee.

During the Great Depression, only three out of four Americans could find work. Today, the number is nine out of 10.

Today's joblessness is too high, and the long-term squeeze undergone by the middle class should be a national scandal, but we have been through far worse as a nation and emerged ultimately stronger.

One of the prime complaints we hear today about America is that business reacts badly to uncertainty. But by definition, the future is always uncertain. Deal with it.

Even the decades that seem like consensus "good times" in the rearview mirror of history were fraught with ups and downs and crises of national self-confidence.

We remember the 1980s and 1990s as times of great prosperity (aided by the fact that the baby boomers were in their fit and trim 30s and 40s). But I recently rediscovered the 75th anniversary edition of Forbes from 1992. The cover headline presented the theme of the entire issue -- "Why We Feel So Bad ... When We Have It So Good."

Inside were authors ranging from Saul Bellow and John Updike to Henry Louis Gates and Peggy Noonan analyzing the angst. Noonan's typically graceful essay offers this psychic snapshot: "Another thing has changed in our lifetimes: People don't have faith in America's future anymore."

Stop and remember that this was two years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Democracy and capitalism had defeated communist dictatorships after a half-century-long Cold War. Yes, we were weathering a mild recession, but it came after the Wall Street boom of the 1980s and ahead of the internet innovations of the 1990s. And yet national decline was the topic of conversation.

Moments of doubt and disaffection are part of the human condition. It is not a problem exclusive to America. It is not a reflection upon or the responsibility of any given president.

America has weathered far worse storms than those of our times.

Is the American dream dead?

The current round of doomsaying has been fueled in part by something different and more cynical -- a political culture in which extreme partisans on both sides believe they can gain tactical advantage if people think the country is going to hell.

Fear is a powerful recruiting tool in this business plan. It leaves professional polarizers in the media and politics rooting for a president's failure. Democrats did it toward the end of Bush's term and now Republicans do it to Obama. But you can't run down a country in the hopes of then being called upon to raise it up.

When you view our nation's problems with a sense of historic perspective, you quickly see that America has weathered far worse storms than those of our times.

The American Dream is alive and well. The franchise is expanding to a broader group than ever before. We have strengths that previous generations did not have -- and we have different problems as well. That's life. We need to toughen up and straighten our civic backbone. We need to build bipartisan determination to deal with challenges ranging from terrorist threats to cutting the deficit and paying down the national debt.

Each generation is given the opportunity and the obligation to confront the challenges of its time.

Americans today have rational reasons for optimism as we face the future. We are a diverse, dynamic and innovative nation founded on an ideal of freedom that continues to inspire individuals around the world. Together, we will keep the American experiment strong and growing as we work to form a more perfect union.

- John P. Avlon

Let’s Resolve to Simplify the Tax Code

2010-12-25T23:57:00.001-05:00

Let’s Resolve to Simplify the Tax Code
By George F. Will
Thursday, December 23, 2010

WASHINGTON - Many parents have heard FICA Screams. Indignant children, holding in trembling hands their first paychecks, demand to know what FICA is and why it is feasting on their pay.

FICA (the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax) is government compassion, expressed numerically: It is the welfare state; it funds Social Security and Medicare. Sometimes it makes young people into conservatives.

Dave Camp was 14, working for his father’s garage in Michigan, when he made the acquaintance of FICA. Now 57 and about to begin his 11th term in Congress, he will chair the Ways and Means Committee, where he will try to implement the implications of his complaint that “the tax code is 10 times longer than the Bible, without the good news.”

His aim is “fundamental” tax reform, understood the usual way - broadening the base (eliminating loopholes) to make lower rates possible. He would like a top rate of 25 percent - three points lower than Ronald Reagan achieved in 1986, with what proved to be perishable simplification.

In George W. Bush’s 2004 speech to the Republican convention, he denounced the tax code as “a complicated mess” that annually requires “6 billion hours of paperwork” - now estimated at 7.6 billion. He vowed to “simplify” it. The audience cheered. Then he promised new complexities.

There would be “opportunity zones” - tax relief for depressed areas - and a tax credit to encourage businesses to establish health savings accounts. The audience cheered.

This is perennial mischief - using the tax code not simply to raise revenues efficiently (with minimal distortion of economic behavior) but to pamper pet causes, appease muscular interests and make social policy. Since 1986, the tax code has acquired more than 15,000 complications.

Many conservatives, including Camp, believe that although most Americans should be paying lower taxes, more Americans should be paying taxes. The fact that 46.7 million earners pay no income tax creates moral hazard - incentives for perverse behavior: Free-riding people have scant incentive to restrain the growth of government they are not paying for with income taxes.

“I believe,” Camp says, “you’ve got to have some responsibility for the government you have.” People have co-payments under Medicare, and everyone should similarly have some “skin in the game” under the income tax system.

In addition to the one-third of the 143 million tax returns filed by individual earners for 2007 that showed no tax liability, additional millions of households have incomes low enough to exempt them from filing tax returns. The bottom two quintiles of earners have negative income tax liabilities - they receive cash payments from the government via refundable tax credits.

If Barack Obama is accurately reported to be considering serious tax simplification and lower rates, he will have an ally in Camp - up to a point. Serious arguments about taxes are never just about taxes. They are about government’s proper size and purposes. Concerning that, Obama differs with Camp, who says: “Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.”

Talk back at georgewill@washpost.com.

Debra Medina Tells Us Why Property Taxes Need to Be Abolished

2010-09-10T01:13:00.011-04:00

Debra Medina, Photo by Spike Johnson

Please enjoy the lively posts in the blog that follows the Dallas Observer article: "Debra Medina Tells Us Why Property Taxes Need to Be Abolished".

Debra Medina was running for Governor of Texas, and advocates that property taxes should be abolished -- that's right, not cut, abolished. She points to an April 2009 position paper (Enhancing Texas' Economic Growth Through Tax Reform) by the Texas Public Policy Foundation as the foundation for her belief that a revised sales tax is a better option.

Medina says income and property taxes are the biggest drags on the economy, while sales tax has the least effect. She compares it to putting a heavy load on a mule's shoulder instead of spreading it across its back. And because Texas taxes only about half of the 168 items that other states do, she says there's a lot of room to broaden the base.

"For me, it's not about just the fiscal idea," she says. "It really is about understanding that it's an essential element of freedom. That's why you have to do it, but freedom and prosperity walk hand in hand. When you do things that give people more freedom, you see that the whole society will be more prosperous."

Isn't the scary part about that, though, is that it's less predictable what people are going to spend money on, whereas people have to pay their property taxes?

"But it gives us the real accountability that we need out of government," she says. "That's why we're hurting so bad right now."

The Best Ways to Challenge a Property Tax Assessment

2010-09-04T16:09:00.003-04:00

Many people challenge their property tax assessments every year, I have challenged my property tax assessment multiple times. Your assessed value is nothing more than a guess, a "shot in the dark" at what someone MIGHT pay for your home. Is this the best way to generate the necessary resources to run local governments? Absolutely not! You can challenge your assessment, and I encourage every property owner to do so; by over-burdening the system with our assessment challenges, the "status-quo" crowd of property-tax lovers will see the unfairness and inefficient burden that the property tax places on local governments in "guessing" what your property value might be every year.

Here are some grerat tips for challenging your assessment from www.changeofaddress.org:

Did you know that nationally about 1/3 of the people who challenge their property taxes actually win? It’s very possible for you to do the exact same thing. If you have found that your home has been assessed at a value far above its current market value then you need to seriously consider challenging the assessment. This has a lot of positive effects none more significant than you saving money immediately on your taxes. Since you are reading this article I’ll assume that you are either in the real estate or related industry OR you are contemplating challenging your property tax assessment and are looking for ideas to support your case. You will find a lot of similar articles on the Internet so we will work hard to dig a little deeper and get you off to at least a good start on a winning strategy.

Tip 1 – First take a step back and analyze how far off of the real market value you think the assessment might be. If you feel like it is 10% or more higher than what the true value of your home is then it is probably worth pursuing a challenge. If you think it is off by less than that given your chances of winning (1/3) along with the total tax savings will most likely not be worth your time and may actually end up costing you in the end.

Tip 2 – When determining the actual market value of your property you need to find comparable homes that were sold in your surrounding community. There are several ways you can do that including taking advantage of some online services. One that is super easy and a quick reality check is from Realtor.com and is located here: http://www.realestate.com/homepricecheck/. You can also contact a local realtor and get exact comps from them which is actually the ideal answer plus it’s possible that they have been in the comp homes making it easier for them to help you compare them to your house.

Tip 3 – Take a good look at the tax assessment for any errors about your home. You would be surprised what they might have wrong. Maybe they listed your home as having a pool and it doesn’t, or the wrong size, number of bedrooms, etc. This is extremely common and is also an easier way to get your assessment reduced (because it’s painfully clear it should be). This should be seen as something you HAVE to do rather than just a tip.

Tip 4 – Find out who the tax assessor is and who can help you get the assessment changed. Be courteous and setup an appointment to visit with them in person. Don’t suck up to them too much as they have heard every complement a thousand times. You just want to be courteous and respectful and if you are lucky they will help you understand the best way to combat the assessment. So when in doubt, ask.

Tip 5 – Either in person, over the phone, via email, or any other way of communication with the assessor make sure you sell the needed improvement and/or problems you are having with your home. Yeah we have a pool but the pump is broken, the drain doesn’t work, the concrete is all cracked, etc. Be descriptive and let them know that the house isn’t worth the current valuation they have in mind.

Tip 6 – Talk to your neighbors to see if they have any issues with their assessments and if any of them have been successful at getting their property taxes reduced. It’s very likely that they will either be in a similar situation or will have already won an appeal or lost one. Either way you can get some invaluable advice. In the worst case you will either get them thinking or at least get some sympathy/empathy going. It’s true that with property taxes misery loves company.

Tip 7 – Hire a real estate professional or attorney that focuses on fighting property taxes. This only makes sense if you think the assessment is way off (greater than 10%) otherwise it ‘s very possible that the costs of fighting the assessment is more than the savings. With that said, another reason to consider is that even if it costs you more this year to fight an assessment you could reap benefits for years to come making it potentially still viable.

Finally, one of the most important tips that we can give you is really more of an encouragement. If over 1/3 of the people are successful at getting their property taxes reduced nation-wide, you really do have an excellent chance of making it happen if you get informed and stick to your guns/take a stand.

Here are some other great resources on the web that may help you:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2163949_appeal-property-tax-value.html

http://blog.valueappeal.com/categories/tips-tricks

http://www.thewisdomjournal.com/Blog/7-tips-to-lowering-your-property-tax/

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/taxes/5-tips-appealing-your-property-taxes

http://www.realestateproarticles.com/Art/16315/272/Tips-Tricks-for-Appealing-Property-Taxes.html

N O T Made in America

2010-08-15T23:35:00.002-04:00

John Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6 am.

While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG).

He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes
(MADE IN KOREA).

After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today.

After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) filled it with GAS (from Saudi Arabia) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (made in MALAYSIA), John decided to relax for a while.

He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL), poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in AMERICA.

Blame Game Could 'Boomerang' on Obama, Strategist Says

2010-07-05T00:48:00.000-04:00

Go to the store, try to buy an American-made product, supporting American jobs. It is hard to do!

In early 1997, a United States Justice Department investigation uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in violation of U.S. laws regarding foreign political contributions. The Chinese denied all accusations. Twenty-two people were eventually convicted of fraud or for funneling Asian funds into the United States elections, and others fled U.S. jurisdiction. Several of these were associates of Bill Clinton or Al Gore (Source: Wiki "Chinagate").

Bill Clinton went on to work very hard to get communist China into the World Trade Organization. According to the Economic Policy Institute, "the growth of U.S. trade with China since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy. Between 2001 and 2007 2.3 million jobs were lost or displaced, including 366,000 in 2007 alone. New demographic research shows that, even when re-employed in non-traded industries, the 2.3 million workers displaced by the increase in China trade deficits in this period have lost an average $8,146 per worker/year. In 2007, these losses totaled $19.4 billion."

The impacts of the China trade deficit are not limited to its direct effects on the jobs and wages of those displaced. It is also critical to recognize that the indirect impact of trade on other workers is significant as well. Trade with less-developed countries has reduced the bargaining power of all workers in the U.S. economy who resemble the import-displaced in terms of education, credentials, and skills. Annual earnings for all workers without a four-year college degree are roughly $1,400 lower today because of this competition, and this group constitutes a large majority of the entire U.S. workforce (roughly 100 million workers or about 70% of all workers). China, with nearly 40% of our non-oil imports from less-developed countries, is a chief contributor to this wage pressure."

So, this CNN article asks, who is to blame? Clearly, President Clinton started our economic downfall with criminal, treasonous treachery with communist China. President Bush shares the blame, as well, for 8 years of doing nothing to change the trade deficit. President Obama has inherited our misery, borne of 12 years of courting a communist nation with our business. "He who collaborates with communism chooses slavery, treason, dishonor - or suicide" stated Dorothy Thompson, writing in Life Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 12, March 22, 1948).

President Obama MUST act to restore trade balance and promote private sector business and responsible local manufacturing; what made America the superpower we are today. If we want unending unemployment benefits, then they should be financed with a 35% tax on communist Chinese imports.

Measure to Abolish North Dakota Property Taxes Approved

2010-07-01T23:36:00.001-04:00

Mar 30 2010 3:44AM
Associated Press

Bismarck, N.D. (AP) Supporters of abolishing North Dakota property taxes may begin gathering petition signatures to put the idea on the ballot.

Secretary of State Al Jaeger has approved the ballot initiative for circulation. It would change the North Dakota Constitution to eliminate property taxes, starting in January 2012.

The Legislature would have to use state taxes to replace the property tax income of local governments, and figure out a way to distribute the replacement money.

The measure needs almost 26,000 petition signatures by Aug. 4 to get a spot on the November general election ballot.

Voters would have to approve the amendment for it to take effect.

The North Dakota Legislature rejected a similar proposal last year.

What Do You Think is Wrong & Unfair About Property Taxes

2010-03-29T09:46:00.002-04:00

I was recently asked to write "What do you think is wrong & unfair about property taxes in your area or your property?". Here was my response:

- Everything is wrong and unfair with taxing property to fund necessary government services in 2010.

- The Philosophy of Property Taxes. If the intent of property taxation is (or even should be - this is really a political libertarian vs. progressive tax policy question) that you should pay taxes according to your ability to pay, then 220 years ago, when many states enacted a property tax to pay off Revolutionary War debts, many citizens were from an agricultural-based community where the size and perceived value of a person's property probably could be correlated to their wealth. In 2010, a person's home is generally NOT always representative of their true wealth, which may be in other instruments or areas, like stocks, bonds, savings, income, or other tangible or intangible instruments. A billionaire could live in a shack, and pay much less than the single mom/teacher with 2 kids in the raised ranch across the street. See the article " Time to Abolish Antiquated Property Tax" By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson (faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College) | Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at http://www.timesanddemocrat.com/articles/2007/07/10/opinion/doc46928a44cc223654321144.txt

- A homeowner that takes care of their property, and makes timely repairs and keeps their home with a neat and clean appearance will give the perception that they have a "nice home", and it will be more marketable from a sales standpoint. "Market value", or the local assessor's "assessed value" is the supposed measure that will vary how much taxes the homeowner will pay. Therefore, by keeping your house marketable, and not parking junked vehicles in your yard, or tearing off all the siding and spray-painting "property taxes suck - rebel now!" and neglecting your yard, you will be assessed higher, and will therefore pay more taxes than a less-diligent homeowner. It does not matter that you are retired, unemployed, poor, rich or disabled or to what extent you use the government's services, you will pay more property taxes.

- A family of 5 living in a home assessed at $100,000 will pay half the property taxes that a family of 5 will pay living in a home assessed at $200,000. The family in the $200k assessed home may be poor or unemployed, and the family in the $100k assessed home might be millionaires. The family in the $100k home might use more government services than the family in the $200k home, but pays less for the government services. Perhaps each family uses the same government services, the family in the $200k home still pays more.

- Assessment. What is it, and what is it supposed to be? It is NOT what a home has sold for. It is NOT a guarantee of what a home will sell for. It is NOT anything more than a guess. Perhaps an educated guess, but still just a simple guess; an opinion. A guess directly affects how much property taxes will be paid to fund necessary government services. There is no applied assessment science. There is no applied assessment method, exact and the same equally across the state to assess property values. How hard is it for an assessor to skew the assessment to favor their friends or family? In my town (Hastings, NY), there are over 10,000 properties for the one assessor to accurately assess each year, and he works for a few other local towns, as well. That's potentially over 20,000 properties to assess. I assure you that accuracy is not guaranteed. If you disagree with the amount of your assessment, you are encouraged to meet informally with the assessor (according to the NYS Office of Real Property Services), which I have had to do a few times. This generally involves a negotiation of what the assessment should be. How ridiculous is that? Now, your taxation is dependent on your own negotiating skills with the assessor; again, no subjectivity, and plenty of room for shenanigans. If you cannot come to an agreement with the assessor on what the assessed value should be, you go before the Board of Assessment Review, who are supposed to be your peers, but who may or may not agree with you, either. If you disagree with the Board, you go to small claims court. How much easier would this all be if we consolidated all local government services to the County level, then paid sales tax and income tax only to fund the necessary government services? An equal, fair percent could be charged, the infrastructure already exists for collection, and there would be no wrangling with assessors and boards and comparing your property to your neighbors' property and everyone wasting time and energy GUESSING what a property MIGHT sell for.

- Property Ownership. A retired farm couple that paid off their home years ago continues to pay property taxes, "renting" their own land from the government until they sell. Once the suburbs creep out to where they farmed for the last 30, 40 or 50 years, the developers begin to desire their property. They are retired and on a fixed income, and their assessor, who is friendly with the developer, raises their property assessment to the point that they can't pay the property taxes. If they don't pay the property taxes, they will be evicted from "their" land, that they "paid for" years before. Hence, in a society that continues to tolerate a property tax, only the government really "owns" property.

- Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) Agreements and Empire Zones. Companies use the threat of litigation as a means to NOT pay what the property tax laws should strive for - fairness and equality. The cost of doing business in New York State has risen to the level where a business cannot or need not compete with other states in the amount of property taxation charged. Should NYS and local governments not offer companies incentives and PILOT Agreements, those companies will threaten to leave. This practice has held many municipalities hostage, with the threat of massive unemployment sufficient to lower the property taxes paid by companies deemed "too important to lose" to the community. Unfortunately, the local homeowners and small business owners end up with the tab. Is this fair? Absolutely not, and many of these companies either threaten again before their PILOT is up to see what they can get away with, or end up leaving anyway, so now we have empty buildings no longer on the tax rolls. See the Syracuse Post Standard article "New Process Gear, Town of DeWitt, Settle Tax Dispute" at http://blog.syracuse.com/east/2009/08/new_process_gear_town_of_dewit.html. Ah, the "Free Trade" and selling out of the once great manufacturing economy of America! I suppose if you found my website, www.abolishthepropertytax.blogspot.com, you know you've got me going now! My point is to echo the words of Benjamin Franklin, when he stated in Emblematical Representations in 1774 that "The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." Therefore, the use of PILOT Agreements and Empire Zones is UNFAIR to local small business owners and homeowners because we are not all being treated fairly by the property tax.

Heat Rises on the China-U.S. Relationship

2010-03-20T23:00:00.000-04:00

It's about time!! At least some are "getting it" - that the Clinton-era open door to China and WTO has RUINED the American Middle Class, and has decimated the American poor! The 11 to 12% unemployment (depending on who you count) is the direct result of the Chinese undervaluing its currency and not paying decent wages to its workers.

Americans either have principles or don't - we either stand for democracy and freedom or we do not. China absolutely does not stand for worker rights, the environment, or FAIRNESS. I for one say, C U T T H E C O R D !!!!!! TAX ALL CHINESE IMPORTS NOW!!!!!

Syracuse Trying to Tax Closed Catholic Churches for the First Time

2010-02-25T14:31:00.001-05:00

Here's an option:

Statewide, consolidate and simplify all the nearly 10,000 "local" governments (schools, fire districts, water & sewer & lighting districts, town & village governments, etc..) to the county level. Set up local volunteer boards to advise the county on how best to provide services your hometown.

Abolish the Property Tax - it is unfair and there are obviously too many loopholes.

Raise the state sales tax to 5% and the County sales tax to 5%. NO exemptions, either. If you or your "organization" consume taxable goods, you pay tax. No special interests, no good deals, just a tax to run a simplified government structure. If the counties can't run with 10% of consumer goods being taxed, reduce spending or raise the tax rate - NO SPECIAL INTERESTS!

With 11% unemployment and 50% of properties off the tax rolls, the rest of us are footing too much of the bill when our revenues are generated from income and property taxes.

Simplify, simplify, simplify!

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."

--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774

http://abolishthepropertytax.blogspot.com

Back to Basics: Creating New Jobs with the National Export Initiative

2010-02-20T15:09:00.003-05:00

I think President Obama is getting it! We cannot "spend" or "stimulate" our way out of the economis crisis; we must innovate and export our way back to prosperity.

Back to Basics: Creating New Jobs with the National Export Initiative
Posted by United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke on February 04, 2010 at 12:22 PM EST

Today, I am at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to announce the details of President Obama's National Export Initiative (NEI), which is a key part of his strategy to get America's economy growing strongly again.

The NEI is an extremely ambitious effort that aims to double American exports over the next five years and support 2 million jobs here at home.

And it is unprecedented.

There have, of course, been previous endeavors by the U.S. government to elevate the importance of exports. But what sets this effort apart is that this is the first time the United States will have a government-wide export-promotion strategy with focused attention from the president and his cabinet.

This initiative was designed with one overriding goal in mind: to get people back to work in jobs that provide security, dignity and a sense of hope for the future.

For much of this last decade, America's economic growth was built on a speculative mania that enriched a select few while leaving many Americans out in the cold. Since 2000, most families have seen their wages stagnate or decline, while the necessities of life like health care and tuition skyrocketed.

The National Export Initiative will help build a stronger economic foundation and allow us to return to the type of sustainable growth that not long ago, helped build the strongest middle class in history.

From the advent of the phone, to the automobile to new drug therapies and the Internet, America's strength has always been our businesses' ability to create and sell products and services that help others around the world lead healthier, wealthier and more productive lives.

That's what we've got to get back to: creating, building and innovating. That is what this country is all about.

With the NEI, American businesses that want to export – especially small and medium-size enterprises -- are going to have a more vigorous partner in the US government.

The NEI is going to impact a whole array of issues that affect our ability to export, but we’re fundamentally focused on three things:

•Expand the US government's export promotion efforts in all its forms. Many American companies don't export, or export less than they should, because they simply don't have the resources to identify promising new markets or the necessary contacts in foreign countries. The National Export Initiative will funnel $132 million to the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA), and the US Department of Agriculture to educate U.S. farmers and businesses about opportunities overseas and directly connect them with new customers.
•Improve access to credit, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses that want to export.
•Increase the government's focus on knocking down barriers that prevent U.S. companies from getting open and fair access to foreign markets.
The American people can feel confident that when we’re party to an agreement that gives foreign countries the privilege of free and fair access to our domestic market, we are treated the same in their country .

The National Export Initiative is one more step in this administration's singular focus on one goal: making sure every American who wants a job can find one.

Gary Locke is Secretary of Commerce

nohometax.org - STOP TAXING OUR (South Carolina) PROPERTY

2010-02-18T22:09:00.002-05:00

Here is an example of the radio ads run in South Carolina by nohometax.org, which successfully changed South Carolina's property taxation and sales tax to the tremendous benefit of all South Carolinians:

Fall Referendum Campaign www.nohometax.org Radio Spot

Radio spot script #3 Listen to the spot

Sound effects: Phone Rings.

Woman: “Assessor’s office.”

Taxpayer: “Hi. I just got my tax bill, and I think ya’ll made a mistake. It’s twice as high as it was last year.”

Woman: “No mistake, Sir. Your property went up in value.”

Taxpayer: “How did it go up in value? I didn’t do anything to it.”

Woman: “It was re-assesed.”

Taxpayer: “What does that mean?”

Woman: “It means we said it went up in value.”

Taxpayer: “I didn’t do anything to it.”

Woman: “We did. We re-assessed it.”

Taxpayer: “But Ma’am, my salary didn’t go up last year.”

Woman: “And yet, your taxes did. Isn’t it exciting?”

Taxpayer: “How am I supposed to pay more taxes?”

Woman: “Shouldn’t be a problem. You’re rich.”

Taxpayer: “I’m what?”

Woman: “You’re rich. Your property is skyrocketing in value.”

Taxpayer: “That doesn’t help me pay the taxes.”

Woman: “You could sell it.”

Taxpayer: “Then what?”

Woman: “Buy something bigger.”

Taxpayer: “And pay even higher taxes?

Woman: “Oh, quit griping. You’re rich.”

Announcer: If you’re fed up with skyrocketing property taxes, help get them under
control. Vote “Yes” to the Property Tax Cap Referendum. That’s “Yes” on the Property Tax Cap Referendum.

Paid for by NoHomeTax.org, Emerson Read, Chairman.

Labor Dept: Available Labor Rate Increases To 10.2%

2010-02-15T11:09:00.004-05:00

Humor from the Onion (what a "wonderful" thing it is that Bill Clinton sold out our manufacturing to communist China in the 90s and neither George Bush Jr or Barack Obama did anything about it!):

WASHINGTON—In what is being touted by the Labor Department as extremely positive news, the nation's available labor rate has reached double digits for the first time in 26 years, bringing the total number of potentially employable Americans to an impressive 15.7 million.

"This is such an exciting time to be an employer in America," said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, adding that every single day 6,500 more citizens join America's growing possible workforce. "There's such a massive and diverse pool of job-ready Americans to choose from. And each month the number only gets higher."

"While our current available labor rate of 10.2 percent isn't quite as robust as it was in 1982 or 1933, we're happy to say that reaching that benchmark is no longer out of the realm of possibility," Solis continued.

According to the Department of Labor's report, nearly 200,000 more Americans suddenly became fully hirable in October alone. And November saw unprecedented gains in the number of high-quality auto workers, teachers, lawyers, part-time retailers, and even doctors who could be employed.

The report also explained that, because of the booming would-be-employee market, college graduates are having an easier time than ever joining the ranks of those ready and able to receive monetary compensation for work performed at some point.

Moreover, it found that, while all Americans were benefiting in some way from the new trend, the nation's African Americans appeared to be in the best position to take advantage of the upward swing in potential employment, with 15.7 percent of all black citizens now situated to have a chance of becoming wage-earners someday.

"We are very lucky to be living in a time when so many people can just go out whenever they feel like it and get a job application," Deputy Labor Secretary Seth Harris announced. "Compare that to the late '60s or late '90s, when the available labor rate plummeted to 4 percent and employers didn't have their pick of millions upon millions of Americans dying to put on a hard hat or suit jacket for practically peanuts."

Added Harris, "Those were scary times in America."

Though Labor sources said the new figures were encouraging, officials were quick to point out that the exact number of those now possessing the capacity to be offered work someday is actually much higher.

"Our findings don't take into account all the men and women who are available for work but haven't applied for a job in the last month," Solis said. "That's another 2.4 million Americans out there who can proudly say they wake up every day, get their kids ready for school, and then sit in their living rooms praying for the phone to ring."

Solis told reporters she is also encouraged by the vast number of citizens in every state who are willing to take jobs beneath their personal dignity and education level.

The Labor Secretary cited the fact that California boasts an impressive available labor force of more than 2 million citizens, while in Oregon, 11.5 percent of the state is ready to fill out a growing stack of empty W-2 forms. In Michigan, more than 15 percent of all citizens said they could start work either today, tomorrow, or right this very second if that's what it takes.

"I'll do anything," said Ohio resident Garret Landry, who was last not available for steady employment more than 10 months ago. "Seriously, anything. Cars? I could learn how to fix cars. Manual labor? An office job? Just say the word and I'm there."

"I'll transcribe what you're writing for $50," Landry added. "Okay, $25."

Empower the Taxpayer - "It's your money. You should have a say!"

2010-02-08T09:58:00.002-05:00

From the Empower the taxpayer website:

Why Should Your Home Be Governments' Private ATM?

An Idea Whose Time Is Now!

It’s Time to Constitutionally Abolish Property Taxes in North Dakota.
An Idea Whose Time is Now! Democracy is not a spectator sport. If we fail participate our country will cease to be a democracy. We either participate or must be prepared to accept what those who do participate impose on us.
Today our governmental institutions have done more to strip away our liberty and freedom than all other threats to our freedom combined. It has done so by invading our privacy, increasing regulatory control over our life at a rate historically unprecedented and taxing us to fund activities that far exceed the legitimate needs and responsibilities of government.

Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, and Democrats Join Together for the FairTax

2010-01-29T10:14:00.003-05:00

Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, and Democrats Join Together for the FairTax

What is the FairTax plan?
The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment.

The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 296) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.

The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

The FairTax:

Enables workers to keep their entire paychecks
Enables retirees to keep their entire pensions
Refunds in advance the tax on purchases of basic necessities
Allows American products to compete fairly
Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
Ensures Social Security and Medicare funding
Closes all loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
Abolishes the IRS

Michael Reagan’s leadership of the FairTax National Victory Campaign has thrilled most FairTax supporters but dismayed a few. The revered Reagan legacy has suggested to some that the FairTax campaign will be less non-partisan and appeal to only a fraction of the American public in the future.

Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, and those who have given up on any political affiliation should take heart. Michael Reagan is part of a strong team at the FairTax campaign that includes Jessica Wexler, Obama state field organizer, Ken Hoagland, an independent who has worked on grassroots issues across the political spectrum, and thousands of dedicated volunteers from across the political spectrum. Neal Boortz, a great FairTax champion is also a Libertarian. All are working closely together to win a better national tax system and a more honest relationship between citizen and government.

As the press release announcing Michael Reagan’s new role with the FairTax campaign makes clear, “This will remain a non-partisan national movement to win enactment of a far better national tax system.” Reagan went on to say, “Like my father, the FairTax campaign has long said that such big changes must be driven by Americans across the political spectrum. I join many Democrats as well as Republicans and independents who believe the FairTax will cure a host of national problems and lead to a new era of robust economic growth."

The plain fact is, the FairTax cannot win enactment nor can the 16th amendment be repealed without strong support across the political spectrum. FairTax leaders understand this reality and are working every day to bring the benefits of the idea to those in union halls, Republican and Democratic clubs, investor and senior citizen clubs, college campuses, and to states across the country, whether they are “red” or “blue.” The FairTax campaign is a movement based outside of Washington, D.C., for all Americans.

What we have found in hundreds of meetings, on hundreds of talk shows, and even in casual conversations, is that Americans of all political beliefs will passionately support the FairTax once they understand the details. Bridging the skepticism and polarization that commonly divides us can be a challenge, but the FairTax research itself is a roadmap for communicating the virtues of the idea to the different parts of the political quilt that make up the electorate in the United States of America. Unlike every election and every other tax debate, the FairTax does not pit Americans against each other, but joins together our great American family against the corruption of the tax code in Washington, D.C.

Other strong voices best known for their political loyalties will inevitably join our needed movement. When they do, they will work for a cause that is greater than any political party or loyalty. They will be advocates for America, for the working man and woman, for more and better jobs, for our children, and for making sure that our best days as a nation are ahead of us.

The Gift America Needs Most: Manufacturing

2009-12-26T12:07:00.001-05:00

The son of a union miner, Leo W. Gerard started working at Inco’s nickel smelter in Sudbury, Ontario, at age 18 and rose through the union ranks to be elected to his first full term as international president of the United Steelworkers by acclamation in 2001. Gerard had served as the Steelworkers’ seventh international president, having been appointed to the presidency by the union’s International Executive Board upon the retirement of the previous president, George Becker. In his first full term, Gerard has launched a wide range of initiatives that have brought more than 350,000 workers into the union’s ranks—a 60 percent increase.

Contact Leo W. Gerard at: blognews@aflcio.org

To Merge or Not to Merge? Gerald Grant's Proposal for a Countywide School System Draws Passionate Reactions From All Sides

2009-12-22T22:51:00.002-05:00

A Syracuse Post-Standard article about a Syracuse University Professor's wonderful proposal for consolidating all Onondaga County, NY public schools.

Professor Grant, the Author of Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh (Harvard University Press, 2009). His book is a tale of Northern cities, in particular Grant's native Syracuse, N.Y., where failing schools torpedo all attempts at urban revitalization. Against that backdrop, Grant presents the Wake County, NC system as the single best example of the opposite case: a few Southern cities where good schools are driving increased prosperity.

Grant, a professor emeritus at Syracuse University, points to two main factors that account for the difference. One is annexation. Northern cities don't have the power to annex their suburbs; most Southern cities do. So the North has economically strapped inner-city school districts that are ringed by prosperous, and very separate, suburban districts in the same county.

The Era of 'Blame Bush' for Obama is Over

2009-12-07T19:29:00.002-05:00

Above is the link to a CNN article from December 5, 2009 by By Roland S. Martin
CNN Political Contributor

A nationally syndicated columnist, Roland S. Martin is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith" and "Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America." Visit his Web site for more information.

Mr. Martin is offering that it is time for the Obama administration to take ownership of the much anticipated Hope and Change. I have personally made my views known to my Congressional Representatives and to President Obama. My current feelings on the state of the union are:

We will continue to suffer from job losses until we stop importing from and enriching communist China.

If America is to be the shining example of freedom and democracy in the world as envisioned by our founders, we must hold ourselves, our government, and our trading partners responsible for where our money goes, and what we will fund.

Funding the Chinese Communist Party by importing their products has cost us millions of American manufacturing and small business/community jobs. Protectionism is not what I seek, but responsible capitalism, where we trade with free democratic nations only. We are on the unhealthy side of a losing trade imbalance with China, and rebalancing trade is our only way out of this recession.

China trade was wrongly begun in earnest with the Clinton administration, and wrongly continued under the Bush administration. Obama has only 3 years left to take a stand with China, and do what is right for the United States and the world.

Where Things Are Made

2009-10-29T21:15:00.001-04:00

by Richard L. Trumka, Oct 28, 2009

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is a key speaker at tomorrow’s Building the New Economy conference in Washington, D.C. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and economist Jeff Madrick also are among the keynote speakers.

To our nation’s peril, the free trade orthodoxy continues to ignore a fundamental economic fact: It matters where things are made. Over the past decade, the U.S. industrial base has suffered an unprecedented decline. The loss of more than 5 million manufacturing jobs and the closure of over 50,000 manufacturing facilities have undermined our nation’s technical capacity to innovate and to make things, while at the same time decimating our middle class.

Flawed trade and tax policies and a financial system focused on short-term profits drove good jobs offshore, led to record trade deficits, and left the economy in ruins. With the manufacturing share of the nation’s gross domestic profit (GDP) withering to 12 percent (from 15.9 percent in 1995) and the financial sector growing to 22 percent, the structure of the U.S. economy looks more like Monaco than Germany. This growth model of asset bubbles, low wages, credit pyramids, toxic assets and unregulated, out-of-control global capital has been a recipe for disaster.

There is a reason every other developed and advanced developing nation has a manufacturing strategy. Most governments see manufacturing as key to long-term growth, and they target investment in industries and technology. In contrast, the U.S. government abandoned strategy to market forces and left workers and communities hanging without a safety net.

There was a time this nation thought big-investing in its people, infrastructure, technology and manufacturing. We must do so again but we need to recognize that the world has changed. For example, the rest of the world leads in mass transit technology and the United States is home to only two of the 10 largest solar photo-voltaic producers, only one of the top 10 advanced battery manufacturers and only two of the top 10 wind turbine producers. If we want to be world leaders in clean technology and have transportation systems to match then we must think strategically and at scale.

Over the next decade our nation is poised to invest $2 trillion in health care, infrastructure and a greener economy. The nation must take tough and strategic steps to create good jobs, fix our trade and tax laws and rebuild our productive capacity. Governments must restructure and regulate financial systems so that long-term investment is rewarded and gambling is not subsidized. We must use our financial resources to develop and deploy domestically-produced technology and, if there is better technology overseas, use our financial leverage to get those production systems located here. We must think strategically and regionally about industry development so we utilize existing pools of displaced skilled workers, engineering talent and idled plants. And, finally, we must never again lose sight of the fact that it matters where things are made.

Richard L. Trumka was elected AFL-CIO president in September 2009. He served as AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer since 1995. Born in Nemacolin, Pa., on July 24, 1949, Trumka was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 1989. At the time of his election to the secretary-treasurer post, he was serving his third term as president of the Mine Workers (UMWA). At the UMWA, Trumka led two major strikes against the Pittston Coal Co. and the Bituminous Coal Operators Association. The actions resulted in significant advances in employee-employer cooperation and the enhancement of mine workers’ job security, pensions and benefits.

THE INSIDIOUS PROPERTY TAX OR WHO REALLY OWNS OUR HOMES

2009-10-26T08:04:00.002-04:00

Here is a wonderfully insightful article by Ronald W. Mortensen, Ph.D. from the Utah based CitizensForTaxFairness.org, a purely volunteer, grassroots citizens group located in South Davis County, Utah.

PROPERTY TAX REVOLT

THE INSIDIOUS PROPERTY TAX OR WHO REALLY OWNS OUR HOMES
Ronald W. Mortensen, Ph.D.

According to the Census Bureau, in the second quarter of 2007, 68.2 percent of Americans own their homes. And, as would be expected, as we get older, more of us become home owners (55% under 35 years old, 82 percent 65 years and older.*) But do we really own our homes?

Well, not exactly. Those of us with mortgages share ownership with our lenders until we finally pay off our loans. But while we can eventually free ourselves from lenders, short of selling our homes or death, we never free ourselves from the other owners of our homes - a myriad of government entities that levy property taxes on us (the school district, the county, the city, the county library, the water district, the mosquito abatement district, another water district, the sewer district, and a recreation district).

Each separate property taxing district has its hands in our pockets. Each sets its own tax rate independent of the others and each holds separate hearings on tax increases. They all state the tax increase in the lowest possible way - the cost of just one Big Mac, $36 per year on a $180,000 home or just forty cents a day. After all who cannot afford such a small amount? (Have you even wondered why they never put it in terms of, say, just a 10 day supply of insulin or only a two day's supply of groceries?) No taxing entity ever refers to tax increases being considered by a fellow taxing entity. And, they wouldn't shock us by mentioning the total amount of property taxes we pay each year.

If we lose our jobs, we still must pay our property taxes. If we are called to active military duty, we still pay. If we are retired and living on a fixed income, when property taxes go up we still have to pay. If we are a young couple with three children under the age of seven trying to buy our first home, we still have to find the money to pay for a property tax increase. And we can't elect to only pay for the basic service (water, streets, sewer and garbage) like we can with the cable company. We must take the entire service (arts, recreation centers, etc.) or as Hillary Rodham Clinton stated, "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

To make matters worse, the property tax assessment system is rife with errors, open to corruption and highly biased in favor of the government. In Utah, the State Tax Commission and legislature have failed miserably to ensure that assessors follow the law.

The State Tax Commission and the legislature sat idly by while large areas of Davis County were not reassessed for decades although the law requires that properties be reassessed at least once every five years.

Land speculators are allowed to abuse the agricultural land designation and to pay cents on the acre while home and business owners pay hundreds of thousands of dollars on their lots.

Assessors are allowed to assess similar lots at widely varying rates and to arbitrarily set the prices of all lots above a certain altitude at a higher level because of perceived ability to pay. It is not uncommon for a .25 acre lot to be assessed at the same value as a .5 acre lot or for all lots, regardless of size or location in a subdivision to be assigned the same value.

The Utah state legislature, which is dominated by realtors and the realtors association, allows realtors to keep the actual sale prices of homes and other property secret in spite of the fact that this is the basis for Utah’s market value property assessment system.

In order to limit an individual’s ability to challenge a property assessment, the state legislature has established an onerous, costly property assessment appeals system. The appeals system assumes that assessor is right and puts the burden on the property owner to prove otherwise. And because real estate sales information is secret, property owners are denied ready access to the very data they need to establish the market value of their property.

Thus, Utah’s property tax system is designed to give the state maximum control over an individual’s property in order to ensure that government has a stable source of income. The property tax with its market value assessment system and biased appeal system is so unfair and so corrupt that it should be totally abolished. After all, property owners should never be forced to rent their property back from government in order to keep it.

Ronald W. Mortensen, Ph.D., is a retired career U.S. Foreign Service Officer and former Society for Human Resource Management senior executive.

New Process Gear, Town of DeWitt Settle Tax Dispute - Let the Property Tax Revolt Begin!

2009-08-22T23:11:00.001-04:00

Let the Property Tax Revolt begin!

This is ludicrous! Why do they get to have their assessed value reduced while we the taxpayers get soaked paying Magna's fair share? Where's our Pilot Agreement? Where's our absolutely disgusting 50% reduction in assessed value?

Why do we continue to tolerate assessment anyway? What is assessment, other than a human being giving their OPINION of what your property MIGHT sell for - none of which has anything to do with how much government services you use, or your ability to pay. It's just an opinion, and the system lets the assessor reward their family and friends with lower assessments!

Let's consolidate all these unnecessary governments and institute a tax system based on today's economy - the sales and income taxes. Then, we can do what should have been done after WW2 - Abolish the out-dated evil Property Tax!

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.”

—Thomas Jefferson

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."

--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774

Government Consolidation + Regionalization = Property Tax Elimination

2009-07-23T22:12:00.004-04:00

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.” —Thomas Jefferson

I have been paying Property Taxes to my Town and County since 1998. There are many families and businesses in New York State that pay more, and less, than I do. I do not begrudge anyone that is getting a good deal, but I do protest that our Property Tax rates and assessed values vary so widely that there is seemingly no standard.

The Property Taxes you pay are directly affected by one person's opinion; the burden of proof that your assessed value is incorrect is up to you. There is little fairness in this system, and I want it abolished.

We all use the government services, and we should all pay our fair share to obtain those services. Assessing and taxing property is not the best way to accomplish revenue generation to fund local government services. EQUAL sales tax (the same rate for all taxable goods and services) and income tax (the same rate for all earners) are the most efficient and fairest methods to generate revenue for government functions.

It is ludicrous to continue funding the village, the town, the fire district, the sewer district, the lighting district, the library, the school district, and the County all from the perceived value of the property that you supposedly "own". The reality of property "ownership" is that we don't own our property, the County does - try not paying your property taxes, and wait for the sheriff to come and throw you out!

I propose that we consolidate all special districts (fire, schools, library, water, sewer and lighting, etc..), towns and villages in New York State to the County level. Honor all contracts with district, town and village employees until they expire, then negotiate better and consolidate. Allow volunteer local councils to advise the county governments on how to best maintain your hometown, but let the County government provide all of your local government services.

Then, we can finally undue one of the greatest mistakes in the history of the United States, the implementation of the Property Tax.

Elimination: The Property Tax Solution (Indiana)

2009-06-16T22:57:00.001-04:00

Edited video featuring Economist Bill Styring making the irrefutable case for elimination and replacement of property tax in Indiana.

Property Tax Solution | Eliminate Texas Property Taxes

2009-06-16T22:49:00.002-04:00

A video "Paid for Political Announcement / Advertisement" by Texans for Facts, Inc.
Texans For Facts, Inc P.O. Box 1482 Magnolia, TX 77353
A Texas Corporation founded for the sole purpose of fighting for what's best for Texans.

Humorous and to the point!

Time to Abolish Antiquated Property Tax - Pennsylvania

2009-06-16T22:41:00.001-04:00

By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Property taxes in Pennsylvania appear locked into a long-term uptrend. In recent years, there have been huge increases in the portion of the property tax that finances county government. County officials have levied these increases to pay for the unfunded mandates imposed by the state government in Harrisburg . The largest share of the property tax funds the public school districts, and virtually nobody foresees a time when the expenditures of those districts will stop rising. These ongoing pressures for additional tax revenues raise the question: Is it politically and economically feasible to continue raising property taxes in the coming years?

Some might look at the results of a recent ballot proposal in Lawrence County and conclude that Pennsylvanians prefer a property tax over others types of taxes, but this conclusion is unwarranted. When offered the opportunity to receive a modest reduction in the public-school portion of their property tax in exchange for a 1 percent increase in their earned income tax, voters in every school district in the county overwhelmingly voted against it. The context here is crucial. Voters were not opposed to property tax relief, but to a package deal that represented an overall tax increase.

We have a political stalemate in Pennsylvania, because Harrisburg has mandated that the only permissible reform to public-school funding must be structured like the Lawrence County proposals. The psychology is all wrong. It's hard for voters to get excited about a proposal that makes an obnoxious, already-high tax just a little less high (i.e., the property tax) at the price of ratcheting up another obnoxious tax -- the income tax -- when the federal/state/local taking of income is already at an uncomfortable level. If Harrisburg really wants reform, it needs to emulate the boldness of the Michigan government in the 1990s, when it totally scrapped the property tax for school funding, and replaced it with a 2 percent hike in the state sales tax. I suspect that Pennsylvania voters would be far more comfortable with an increase in one type of taxation if it were offset by the complete removal of another type of taxation. If you give Pennsylvania voters the chance to eliminate one part of their tax bill completely, then tax reform has a fighting chance for approval.

The larger, more fundamental problem here is the property tax itself. This form of taxation is totally antiquated, appropriate in America's 19th-century agrarian society, but out of place today. In the 1800s, when there was no income tax and it was considered none of the government's business how much money anybody made, the property tax served as a proxy for one's income. This made a lot of sense then, because it was logical to assume that the citizen farming 80 acres had a higher income than one farming only 40 acres.

Today, though, the homesteads of most Americans are not their source of income, but merely where they live. Why, then, take more money from a citizen with a house of 1,500 square feet than one with 900? One of the elementary principles of prudent taxation is that, in order to avoid harming citizens, taxes should take into consideration the individual's ability to pay. Today, one's ability to pay depends far more on one's income than on the size of one's house. To continue taxing people as if their house were generating their income is absurd.

An additional fault of the property tax is that it can jeopardize home ownership. On the surface, it appears that once a person has paid off the mortgage on his house, then he owns it free and clear, but this is not so. If the homeowner falls on hard times and can't pay his property taxes, the sheriff comes and confiscates the house. Under the present system, a person doesn't really "own" his home completely, but in effect rents it from the local government which permits him to keep it only so long as the "owner" continues to pay taxes on it. We have heard of senior citizens -- wonderful, law-abiding citizens who worked hard for decades to buy their own home -- having to sell their home because they couldn't afford the taxes. This is abominable.
And how many of America's homeless persons became so because they fell on hard times and were evicted from their homes because they couldn't pay their property tax?

In an era when it has been the federal government's policy to facilitate home ownership as a central feature of "the American dream," it is anomalous for local governments to make it difficult for some citizens to keep their homes. The property tax is outmoded, unfair, irrational and destructive. It's time to abolish it.

Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson is a faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College.

Albany Gives People More Power to Consolidate Local Government

2009-06-05T16:43:00.003-04:00

Posted by Marnie Eisenstadt / The Post-Standard June 04, 2009 6:39AM

Fabius, NY -- The combined population of the villages of Fabius and Tully is roughly 1,000 people.

When Bob DeMore was the supervisor of the town of Fabius, he helped land a $58,000 grant so the villages could study going out of business. The money has sat unused for almost two years.

The story has been the same for most other villages that ponder consolidation: a lot of talk but no action.

That's about to change across New York. The people are getting a hammer.
A bill that passed the state Assembly Monday and the state Senate Wednesday will make it much easier for people to push their villages, fire districts and other local governments out of existence. Gov. David Paterson supports the bill.

The legislation is the work of state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a rumored candidate for governor. Cuomo's been promoting it around the state since December. It sped through both houses of state government with bipartisan support; the vote in the state Senate was 46-16.
State Sens. Dave Valesky and John DeFrancisco, from opposing parties, supported the idea. Valesky, D-Oneida, and DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, both like giving the people more power over their governments.
But DeFrancisco thought at least some of the bill's quick approval was because of politics.
"Cuomo is the golden boy of the Democratic Party now in view of Paterson's dive," he said.

Good-government advocates love the legislation because it empowers the people to make change. Village mayors and the volunteer fire lobby hate it because, they say, it could enable people to make reckless decisions.
The current rules are so complicated that consolidation efforts rarely succeed.

The new legislation lets just 10 percent of the registered voters of a community force a vote on eliminating any form of local government. (When the number is less than 500 registered voters, 20 percent is needed. If the number is more than 50,000 registered voters, 5,000 signatures is enough.)

The law also opens the door for counties to prompt a vote to dissolve a government.

Any initiative must be approved by the people by a majority vote. If it passes, the governments involved must create a plan for dissolving or consolidating.

In the past 25 years, about a dozen of New York's more than 550 villages have dissolved. During the same period, the number of fire districts has increased by 32, to almost 870.

There are more than 10,000 local government units in New York, where people have the second-highest tax burden in the nation. Those governments include the ones we know about (such as town and village governments) and the ones we forget about (such as sewer and lighting districts).

School districts are not included in the legislation.

In Onondaga County, the number of local government units is 941, the second highest in the state. Only Erie County has more: 1,044.
"It shifts the power to the people," said Ben Dublin, speaking for Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney, who also works on government consolidation issues in the county.

The county worked with the town of Clay last year to consolidate its police department with the sheriff's office.

Dublin said he likes the provision that allows a county to push a vote to abolish entities of government in the county. Using that, the county could come up with the plan to cut the number of fire departments and reorganize them, and then put that to a countywide vote. Previously, the county has said it was powerless to effect any change within the 57 departments that serve its residents.

The power shift is something the volunteer fire departments' lobby does not want. As Cuomo's legislation moved through the Legislature, the Firemen's Association of the State of New York hired a public relations company to start a media and letter-writing campaign.

The public might not know the consequences of a vote to abolish a district, said Kirby Hannan, a lobbyist for the group. Fire departments have mutual aid agreements with other departments to consider, and volunteers from one department might not be interested in working for a neighboring department.

Tom Perkins, former chief of the Baldwinsville Fire Department who acts as its spokesman, said he welcomes the consolidation of fire departments. He thinks Onondaga County should have 19 departments -- one for each town -- not 57.

His department is working to join with the Lysander department, which asked for help because its declining membership was making it difficult to answer calls. The new rules will likely make that merger easier.

The town of Van Buren, which includes part of Baldwinsville, recently released a private consultant's proposal on fire department consolidation that also would be made easier by the new law. The study suggests combining the fire departments that serve Van Buren -- which are located in five towns -- into a regional fire district.

Claude Sykes, Van Buren's supervisor, thinks the plan would help fix serious problems in the local fire service, but he doesn't think it will happen without help from outside. He wants Mahoney to take the lead.
"Change is desperately needed," he said.

The current law on mergers works fine, said Peter Baynes, executive director of the New York State Conference of Mayors. It requires the signatures of 33 percent of the people to start the process, which begins with a study, not with a deciding vote. There is no deadline for the vote.
Baynes said it's backward to vote on dissolving a village before there's a study of the impact. DeMore, a former Fabius supervisor and a county legislator, agreed.

It is hard to say what will happen when the legislation is passed, said Vito Sciscioli, head of Syracuse 20/20, a group that advocates for consolidation and smart development in Onondaga County. He would like to see communities use this new tool to take a hard look at how they are growing and to plan in a smarter way.

"It's a debate that has to happen," Sciscioli said. "Where it ends up, who knows? That's the beauty of our system."

Minoa Mayor Richard Donovan said he isn't opposed to consolidation, but allowing a small number of people to dismantle village government isn't the way to do it. Donovan has been mayor of Minoa -- population 3,345 -- for six years and has been involved with village government for 20.

In his village, it would take about 220 people to put the question to the voters. That would start a process that would spend village time, money and energy on proving the village's worth.

"I think it will be a sad day when grassroots government goes away," Donovan said.

Donovan the true cost savings is in Albany. He thinks the state Legislature is trying to get credit for doing something to streamline government while avoiding a hard look at itself.

"You're the dysfunctional government in this whole thing," Donovan said. "I don't see you reorganizing and doing anything to help."

Abolishing The Texas School Property Tax (Video)

2009-06-04T15:40:00.003-04:00

For decades, Texas' school property tax to fund "maintenance and operations" has been causing troubles for taxpayers -- skyrocketing burdens, lawsuits and confusion.

Legislators, taxpayers, school boards and judges have all taken cracks at reforming a system that is fundamentally irreparable.

Video interview featuring Texas Legislator Phil King.

Ruby Seeks to Abolish North Dakota State Property Taxes

2009-05-23T23:09:00.004-04:00

Ruby Seeks to Abolish North Dakota State Property Taxes
by Erin C. Hevern, Wahpeton, ND and Breckenridge, MN Daily News

Friday, February 27, 2009

A proposal reviewed at a House Constitutional Revision hearing Thursday in the North Dakota Legislature has prompted a public debate among city, business and school district officials on property taxes and how they're used to finance individual entities.

Rep. Dan Ruby, R-Minot, proposed a constitutional amendment that would seek to abolish property taxes within three years. Starting January 2012, the Legislature would use state tax collections to make up the more than $700 million local governments collect each year in property taxes.

Ruby, who spoke at the hearing, said the Legislature could replace the lost revenue without raising state tax rates.“Once this money is back in the people’s hands, most of what they buy, the state’s going to get 5 percent of that back in sales tax,” Ruby told the Associated Press (AP). “If this helps businesses [to] be able to increase wages, based on not having to pay property tax ... the state’s going to get more money back.”

According to the same AP article, Bev Nielson, a spokeswoman for the North Dakota School Boards Association, called the proposal an interesting concept but said it would stop people who were willing to pay more for local school improvements from doing so.

“Having a local voice and some local ownership and participation in the funding of schools is not a bad thing,” she said.Wahpeton School District Superintendent Mike Connell doesn't believe the proposal, numbered HCR3046, to be a realistic alternative to property taxes."Long term sustainability on the part of the state would inevitably become a problem," he said Friday.

Wahpeton Finance Director and Interim City Coordinator Darcie Huwe said if North Dakota decides to eliminate property taxes, it could potentially be devastating to the effectiveness of local governments to provide services.

"Many public services are provided through local governments at the obligation of state mandates, meaning local dollars pay for activities the state deems necessary and required," Huwe said. "Services would be funded and provided only at a level determined by the state and not necessarily based on local needs or priorities."

To provide public services in 2009, the state of North Dakota, Richland County, Wahpeton Public School District, the city of Wahpeton, the Park Board and Vector Control District No. 5 levied more than $6.5 million in property taxes on the approximately 7,700 residents in the city."

To replace this revenue with state funds, presumably a tax of a different name as stated in the proposed resolution, would cost a North Dakota family of four $3,396," Huwe said.

Supporters of the proposal attending the hearing Thursday included a Valley City resident, Dennis Stillings, who said the amendment would be helpful to retired North Dakota residents who worry they won't be able to pay the property tax bills on their homes. Stillings told the AP that eliminating the tax would send "shock waves of excitement through the country" and "We will be the only state without a property tax."

The Constitutional Revision Committee will decide at a later date whether to seek approval of the proposal from the full House of Representatives. The amendment would not take effect unless approved by the House, Senate and North Dakota voters. They'd decide the question in November 2010.

Abolish School Property Taxes In New Jersey

2009-05-23T22:52:00.002-04:00

Abolish School Property Taxes In New Jersey
Peter P. Garibaldi, Seaside Park, NJ

Eliminate property taxes for the purpose of providing revenue in support of county, municipal and school budgets.

January 14, 2009

Property value is not an indicator of ability to pay taxes. And our tax system, based on real property value, is conceptually archaic, regressive in its imposition and, in so many cases, fosters involuntary economic dislocation.

In these times, the costs of management and collection of property taxes, throughout all of the 567 municipalities in NJ, is inefficient and excessive, consuming millions upon millions of nonproductive taxpayer dollars.

Examples: 567 costly periodic reassessments of our homes; 567 individual municipal tax collection departments; 567 individual municipal tax assessor departments, to mention a few. These 567 duplications of effort by political governmental subdivisions can no longer meet the requirements of a system of taxation, which must be both efficient and equitable, as mandated by our NJ State Constitution.

Review the 567 NJ towns' municipal budgets, and you will see the vast amounts of tax dollars that will be available to support the best of school systems and the best of municipal services in the country.

Eliminating the property tax automatically eliminates the costly system of property tax rebates and so-called NJ Saver Property Tax Relief programs. The government that stops overtaxing will not find it necessary to pretend to give it back.

All residents will gain. Homeowners, who have fallen on bad economic times (loss of jobs) and cannot meet their exorbitant property taxes, will not lose their homes. The first to foreclose on your home and take it from you for failure to pay your property taxes is the same town that assesses, reassesses and collects your taxes. Tenants will realize a direct reduction in rent equivalent to their landlord's eliminated property tax on their dwelling.

There is much more; however, this media may not be conducive to the task. Urgency demands immediate in-depth review of this question of taxation and development of timely answers. Governments, at all levels, are faced with revenue shortfalls and huge budget deficits.

New Jersey has the highest home and land taxes in the nation, with rapidly declining property values. To continue this method of taxation will financially strangle those governments closest to the people from providing the necessary and essential services the people need and deserve.

(Madison County, Georgia) OPINION: Time to Abolish all Property Taxes

2009-05-23T22:36:00.002-04:00

(Madison County, Georgia) OPINION: Time to Abolish all Property Taxes
Posted by Frank Gillispie in Opinions
Monday, April 6. 2009

Once again our board of commissioners and board of tax assessors are in disagreement. This is a continuing story that started many years ago. There have been a series of members of both boards, including the chairman’s seat. But no matter who occupies the positions, nothing changes. I am now of the opinion that it will never change.

The only solution to the problem is an entirely different tax code, one that eliminates property taxes and abolishes the board of tax assessors. The only practical way to do that is with an enhanced sales tax program.

Now I have, for a long time, had problems with the concept of property taxes. It makes no sense to me for a person or family or business to put forth the effort to secure a title to property, then be forced to pay rent to the government for property they supposedly own. Among the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are property rights. Yet government can slap a big tax on property, then seize it if the owner fails to pay that tax. Finally, people who go to the trouble to purchase and improve property are taxed. People who rent that property are not taxed.

People who use their property to produce food, minerals or wood products are taxed on the amount of property, not the production from that property. And they are required to pay the tax even if the property is producing no income. Property owners must pay taxes that benefit all citizens of the county, including those who own no property and pay no taxes.

Property taxes are often ill conceived and unfair to the property owner. I strongly support the idea of abolishing all property taxes.

So how do we replace the property tax? After all, essential county services must be paid for and tax revenue is the only source county government has for financing those services. I support an enhanced sales tax as the source of county revenues. By enhanced, I mean that the sales tax should apply to all financial transactions.

Currently, we pay sales taxes on merchandise we purchase, but not on most services. If you take your car to the garage, you will be charged sales tax on the parts the mechanic puts on your car, but the charge for his labor is not taxed. Same applies for house cleaners, landscapers, swimming pool cleaners or other services. I think sales taxes should be extended to services as a replacement for property taxes. Stocks, bonds and insurance policies should also be included in the sales tax program.

We can easily finance country government in a way that places the burden on all citizens, not just the property owners. And that would make the tax assessors office unnecessary, thus solving that long-standing problem.

Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County (Georgia) Journal. His e-mail address is frankgillispie671@msn.com. His website can be accessed at http://frankgillispie.tripod.com/

Excessive Government is Wounding Western New York

2009-05-23T22:10:00.002-04:00

Bloated Local Government is Corroding our Sense of Self

Excessive Government is Wounding WNY
By Kevin Gaughan
SPECIAL TO The Buffalo News
Updated: 04/28/09 10:12 AM

In recent years, two great and historic American communities were destroyed: New Orleans and Western New York. The New Orleans region was ravaged overnight by nature. Buffalo Niagara was devastated over several decades by economics. In New Orleans, federal and state governments were unable to do anything about it. Here in our community, local government is unwilling.

In the past two years, I’ve attended 227 Town Board, Village Board and County Legislature meetings throughout Western New York. After conducting a study on the cost of local government, I devised a solution to our inordinately high number of politicians, and began organizing citizens in petition drives to let people decide whether to downsize government. During this effort, I’ve met with more than 400 elected officials; addressed 146 taxpayer groups; spoken at 35 colleges and high schools; and traveled more than 2,700 miles while visiting every corner of our community.
Most important, I’ve listened to thousands of Western New Yorkers tell their stories of lost jobs and disappearing pensions; increased gas prices and decreased incomes; closed plants, hospitals and congregations; and opening gaps between the quality of their lives and those who purport to serve them.

Here’s what I learned: What we have here in Western New York is even greater than we think. The degree to which local government holds us back is even worse than we know. And the national recession’s effect on private citizens, versus its affect on public servants, reveals just who are the “slum dogs” and who are the “millionaires.”

The harsh realities of Western New York’s failures are well known by people and much ignored by politicians: 249,000 residents lost; 45,000 private- sector jobs vanished; the fifth-highest property taxes among America’s 3,086 counties; our urban center of Buffalo now America’s third-poorest city; appallingly high birth defects; shockingly low literacy; and our recent addition to a list of the “10 Fastest Dying” areas in the nation.
All that happened before the national economy collapsed on top of our already moribund local one. When America gets the flu, Western New York gets cancer. And with our region’s now record high 9 percent unemployment rate and accelerating exodus of young people—we’ve lost 30 percent of residents between ages 18 and 34 — it appears that yet another part of us is about to succumb.

Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of our flat-lining pulse is a recent proposal that a local church — ornate, historic and vacant — be dismantled piece by piece and shipped to a vibrant Georgia town. Is this to be the fate of a community that built the Erie Canal, harnessed the power of the Niagara River and created the steel that fortified a nation?

Presiding over this sorry state are 439 elected officials—more than the 435 politicians who represent the entire nation in the U. S. Congress. Local taxpayers’ cost of sustaining these 439 and their staffs exceeds $32 million per year. Which means that during the recent decade in which we suffered unprecedented setbacks while America created unparalleled wealth, we paid local public servants $320 million—more than a quarter of a billion dollars.

And since I published my local government study in 2006, we’ve paid them $96 million more.

When I asked our 45 local governments to voluntarily sacrifice by eliminating two elected positions, with a ferocious roar they claimed that if any such thing happened, life as we know it would end. Little did they realize that’s precisely what most residents want. For in slow motion, against our will, and in both discreet and obvious ways, Western New York has become a two-company town: politicians and poverty. Until we reduce the former, we’ll never be able to address the latter.

Why downsize?
Downsizing local government will reap 10 benefits:
• Decrease property taxes on families and businesses.
• Increase citizens’ voice in their community.
• Reduce the decibel level of politicians’ endless squabbling.
• Expand funds for local services.
• Return town boards to their original size.
• Create transparency, and change meetings from lectures to conversations.
• Provide the necessary first step in reforming state government.
• Align local government with institutions (hospitals, places of worship, companies) that have consolidated to adapt to population loss.
• Revive the role of public referendum in New York State.
• Restore our belief that we can change. If we pay $32 million per year for our politicians, the question is where does that money come from? A comparison of property taxes for a home valued at $150,000 in Erie County, versus in other like-sized American communities with whom we compete, provides the answer.

In Cheektowaga, local taxes for a $150,000 home are $5,414.99; in Baltimore County, Md., they’re $3,402.40. In Williamsville, you pay $4,264.17; in Greater Indianapolis, $2,250.00. And if your $150,000 home sits in West Seneca, your local tax bill is $4,097.13; in Charlotte, N. C., it’s $1,258.05. Any business owner looking to relocate sees our tax rates and never bothers to see our community. That’s why we lose.

And that’s why reducing this heavy load from our narrow shoulders is an essential step on our road to recovery. My proposal to dissolve village governments, eliminate two seats from every town board and decrease our County Legislature from 15 to nine members would save Erie County taxpayers $10.2 million per year, or $102 million over the next decade. And my discovery that we can achieve all of this through the petition process places these savings within our reach.

Citizens have little say
Virtually every town and village board member I interviewed agreed that there is too much government and there are too many pols in our community. They then went on to explain that their municipality is the exception, that it needs the board size it now has and that any change would deprive residents of “diverse views.” They have, it turns out, a rather peculiar definition of diversity.

Attending a local government meeting in Western New York is like attending a lecture. Citizens are told to sit down, remain quiet and not make any quick moves. With most decisions already reached in a “work session”—appropriately named as they’re usually held during the work day to prohibit citizen attendance — the meetings are overly formal shows in which board members vote unanimously on virtually every matter they consider.

Their agendas include votes on whether to purchase a wheelbarrow (Concord); set the location of the high school dance (Cheektowaga); purchase gravel (Tonawanda); hold a garden walk (Williamsville); or change a thermostat setting (Amherst — a debate politicians had for 40 minutes on the night they refused for the fourth time to let residents vote on downsizing).

After seeing more than 200 meetings like this, I find it easy to understand why citizens have given up. But giving up is giving in, and the dire straits in which we find ourselves is the unacceptable price for that.

Local government should be our most intimate level of government. In Erie County, it’s the most remote. Downsizing boards would force politicians to let residents take responsibility for garden walks and Halloween parades, as they do in other American communities, for free. It would deformalize meetings, dismantle the wall that town and village boards erect and transform what is today a lecture by politicians into a conversation among people.

And by ending the practice of politicians hoarding responsibility to rationalize their existence, downsizing may even reduce the air of tension and ill will that permeates public meetings throughout our region.

When town and village boards were first created in New York in the 1800s, they were envisioned as having three members. Early town boards were comprised of a supervisor and two town clerks. Two council members began to appear after the Civil War, and together with a supervisor they comprised a three-member board. All boards were that size until 1926, when Albany added two town justices to the board, thereby increasing its size to five.

Realizing that having an elected official discharge both judicial and legislative duties violated the U. S. Constitution, in 1976 the state removed justices from town and village boards, briefly returning them to their original three-member size.

And in 1932, New York quietly adopted a law that grants citizens the right to force public votes through petitions so that people, not politicians, can decide the size of town boards. In 1972, it added a law that permits citizens to petition to dissolve village governments as well.

Don’t expect Albany to help
After uncovering the 1932 petition law, I began organizing residents to collect the required number of signatures in every town and village. The strength of my idea derives from giving people a tangible tool with which to make their voice heard. And its power is its potential to not only reduce government, but also to restore our belief that we can actually change something in our own community.

From the halls of Albany to our local town and village halls, politicians’ refusal to change has never been more painfully illustrated than in our recent national recession. As jobs, pensions, education endowments, rainy day accounts and families’ sense of security all burst in the bubble, local and state governments did nothing. Except maintain or increase taxes, fees and spending. An examination of where many local officials end up reveals why.

In the State Legislature, 61 percent of Assembly members and 69 percent of state senators are former local government officials. Today’s Albany pols are yesterday’s town board members. Local officials regularly remind them of that, and the fact that local politicians and their staffs form the bulk of state legislators’ election workers. That’s why just before adopting this year’s budget a few weeks ago, Albany quietly removed a plan to create a uniform local government merger process.

The sole recourse is the American tradition of petitions and public referendum. As unaccountable as government is, by reinvigorating the referendum process we will reconnect private citizens with public decisions that affect their life.

Once we downsize local government, we will vest ourselves and our local servants with the moral authority to compel Albany to change, too. And in one fell swoop, we’ll forever end the shell game of town governments complaining about school districts; county executives whining about state excess; and everyone lamenting public authorities.

Ours is a wounded community. We bear the scars of decades of losses that have sapped our strength and our soul. Walking door to door these past months, speaking with folks from Amherst to West Seneca, I found the most striking aspect of local life to be its weariness. Throughout Western New York, the typical skepticism with which we Americans view government has risen to cynicism. And it’s corroding our sense of community, and our sense of self.

“Though we are not now that strength which in old days moved heaven and earth,” as Tennyson wrote, Western New Yorkers remain “one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.”
And while our local government may be out of breath, we have every right, and all ability, to breathe new life into it and ourselves.

Kevin Gaughan is leading a citizens movement to downsize local government. Research for this article was conducted by Lynn Bochenek, Bethany Mazur, Vanessa Schmidt, Brad Reid and Ben Ziller. For more information, visit www.LetPeopleDecide.org.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Unveils Landmark Government Consolidation Legislation

2009-05-23T15:10:00.002-04:00

Cuomo Presents Legislation with Bipartisan Support that will Lower Taxes, Reform Local Government, and Enhance Government Efficiency

~

Legislation Empowers Citizens to Reduce New York State’s Patchwork of Over 10,500 Governmental Entities That Bury Residents with Nation’s Highest Local Taxes

MELVILLE, NY (May 21, 2009) - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo was in Melville today to unveil landmark legislation, entitled the “New N.Y. Government Reorganization and Citizen Empowerment Act,” which will give communities across the state the power to reform local governments. Cuomo has been traveling throughout the state since last year to discuss his plan with the public, local leaders, and government reform groups, and to build bipartisan support for his legislation. The Attorney General was joined by state and local leaders at the headquarters of the Long Island Association.

As the current fiscal climate continues to financially squeeze communities and residents across the state, Cuomo’s proposal is designed to cut government waste, reduce taxes, and provide vital services in a more efficient manner. Currently, the state’s overlapping governments saddle residents with the nation’s highest local taxes.

Cuomo’s comprehensive legislative plan will streamline the often Byzantine and cumbersome process of consolidating local governmental entities, including the myriad special districts across the state. The proposal will not mandate consolidation; rather, it restructures the law to allow citizens, local officials, and counties to make the decisions themselves.
“We have the historic opportunity to pass legislation that will empower citizens, streamline New York’s antiquated local government system, and reduce the tremendous tax burden that New Yorkers deal with every day,” said Attorney General Cuomo. “Over the last several months I have been traveling the state to build public support and to reach out to local leaders regarding this government consolidation proposal. Today’s show of bipartisan support for the plan is further testament to the fact that in these tough economic times we need to implement reform and save taxpayer dollars. I look forward to continuing to work with both sides of the aisle to usher this bill into law.”

In all, there are more than 10,500 governmental entities imposing taxes and fees across New York State. This includes towns, villages, districts, and special districts such as water, sewer, and lighting districts.

As the state’s chief legal officer, Attorney General Cuomo is often tasked with advising local governments on the laws regulating them. It is clear that current laws are filled with inconsistencies and complexities making meaningful reform virtually unattainable. Attorney General Cuomo’s bill repeals and amends these outdated laws to allow for meaningful reform of local governments throughout the state.

Attorney General Cuomo’s proposal has already received support from leaders statewide. Senator John J. Flanagan said, “I’ve long fought to reduce the ever-growing burdens on taxpayers. That’s why I’m happy to work with the Attorney General to make sure that we empower citizens and local governments to fundamentally reorganize and reduce duplicative layers of government so that taxpayers can get some relief.”

Assemblymember Bob Sweeney said, “Attorney General Cuomo’s bill is just what New Yorkers need right now to make government more efficient and to cut unnecessary taxes. I support this bill and look forward to working with the Attorney General to ensure its swift passage.”

Assemblymember Fred Thiele said, “New York State is facing the greatest financial challenge of our generation. Now is the time for bold and progressive innovations that will make our government work better and cost less. Attorney General Cuomo’s bill provides exactly the direction we need to achieve a stronger, streamlined government in New York.”

Assemblymember Patricia Eddington said, “Thoughtful and sensible plans like Attorney General Cuomo’s proposed legislation to empower citizens to reorganize their layers of local governments in order to find efficiencies and taxpayer savings, while still providing them with the services they need, will go a long way to help New Yorkers through this economic crisis and beyond.”

Assemblymember Michael Fitzpatrick said, “Consolidating antiquated and inefficient layers of government will benefit all New Yorkers. I applaud Attorney General Cuomo for developing this proposal and bringing this bill and will fight vigorously to make sure it gets enacted into law.”
Assemblymember Phil Ramos said, “I applaud the Attorney General’s bill that empowers citizens and government to modernize local municipalities in order to save taxpayer dollars. I look forward to working with Attorney General Cuomo to make sure the bill becomes law. Taxpayers deserve no less.”

Assemblymember Phil Boyle said, “New Yorkers deserve a government that responds to their calls for reform. Attorney General Cuomo’s bill empowers citizens of New York to bring about the change they need in their government. Working together in a bipartisan fashion, we can help save taxpayer dollars.”

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said, “I am happy to work with Attorney General Cuomo towards consolidating special districts. In a similar vein, over the last few years in Suffolk, I have worked with municipalities and school districts towards consolidating functions and sharing common services to also save taxpayer dollars.”

Senator Brian X. Foley said, “Working families on Long Island and throughout the state are doing more with less. It’s time government does its part by recognizing the need to reduce costs and save taxpayer dollars. I commend Attorney General Cuomo for bringing this important issue to the forefront and look forward to considering all possible avenues to cut waste and put money back in taxpayers’ pockets.”

Senator Kenneth P. LaValle said, “Long Island homeowners are struggling to pay their property taxes and are looking for tax savings that make sense. Attorney General Cuomo’s proposal would provide consolidation options that some communities may be interested in considering to bring about significant relief.”

Long Island Association President Matthew T. Crosson said, “Long Island has over 900 taxing jurisdictions, more than 700 of them special districts. Their cost adds to the Island’s property tax burden, which is among the highest in the nation. The LIA agrees with Attorney General Cuomo that the voters should be empowered to decide whether to keep special districts as they currently exist or consolidate them to reduce taxes. We look forward to continuing to work with the Attorney General to make this important reform in the region’s and the state’s governmental structure.”
Association for a Better Long Island Executive Director Desmond Ryan said, “With over 10,000 layers of government in New York State, the tax burden that rests on New Yorkers can stifle growth and limit business development. By streamlining government, we can help citizens and the businesses in Long Island and throughout the state. The Association for a Better Long Island supports Attorney General Cuomo’s legislation and urges its passage.”

Long Island Progressive Coalition Director Lisa Tyson said, “The passage of this bill would bring long-needed aid to Nassau County’s hard-working taxpayers. For too long, Special Taxing Districts have been allowed to exist as unregulated independent taxing fiefdoms that have cheated citizens due to their unfair, opaque and corrupt practices. We applaud the Attorney General for championing legislation that will allow for the consolidation, streamlining, or reform of Special Taxing Districts.”

Residents for Efficient Special Districts Executive Director Laura Mallay said, “Consolidating special districts will improve the way government functions in New York State. Taxpayers are currently subjected to an array of overlapping specials districts that cause expense and confusion. Attorney General Cuomo’s bill will encourage vital reforms that give citizens the power to cut the excess bureaucracies and lower their tax burden. This is important legislation, especially in these times, and I fully support it.”
For more information about Attorney General Cuomo’s proposal and to view an interactive map detailing special districts in New York State by county, visit www.oag.state.ny.us

The ITEP Guide to Fair State and Local Taxes

2009-04-25T08:29:00.002-04:00

This is a February 2005 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington D.C.

Property taxes are discussed in length. One portion of the discusion is as follows:

A Regressive Tax
Although sales and excise taxes are the most regressive taxes, they are rarely as maligned as the property tax. The “sticker shock” effect of the property tax is partly to blame for this: it’s a large, very noticeable payment that is made once or twice a year, while sales taxes are spread throughout the year on hundreds of purchases. So the property tax often seems more oppressive and more unfair than it actually is, simply because it’s more visible.

That said, there is no denying that the property tax is generally regressive. Nationwide, low income families paid 3.0 percent of their income in property taxes in 2002, while middle-income families paid 2.4 percent of their income and the wealthiest taxpayers paid just 0.8 percent.

The chief reason that property taxes are regressive is that they are based on home values rather than on income levels—and home values do not always vary directly with income levels. Home values represent a much larger share of income for middle- and lower-income families than for the wealthy. For example, it is common for a middle income family to own a home valued at two or three times their annual income, but wealthier
taxpayers are less likely to own homes worth as much relative to their income levels.

Moreover, property taxes are not responsive to variations in taxpayers’ income: someone who suddenly loses his job will find that his property
tax bill is unchanged, even though his ability to pay it has drastically fallen. (By contrast, income tax bills depend on the level of earned income, so
income taxes are much more sensitive to taxpayers’ ability to pay—an important consideration in times of economic hardship.) And the property
tax can be especially burdensome for elderly taxpayers at the end of their working careers who find themselves “property rich” but “cash poor.”

When the United States was an agrarian society, the property tax was a fair form of taxation. The value of a citizen’s land and buildings was an excellent measure of her wealth. But today, rich families have most of their wealth in other forms of property—stocks, bonds, etc. These forms of property are usually not taxed. According to one recent study, in 2001 real estate represented less than twenty percent of the assets of the richest 0.5 percent of wealth-holders.

Low- and middle-income families, however, still have most of their limited wealth invested in their homes. Because the wealthy have relatively little of their wealth invested in property subject to the real property tax, while the most valuable thing a middle-income family owns is its house, much more of a middle-income family’s wealth is subject to the property tax.

Don't Tax Property by Canadian Andrew Coyne

2009-04-23T20:41:00.006-04:00

Here is an excellent article from Canadian Andrew Coyne; it is a few years old, but there are excellent lessons in the problems of the property tax.

Andrew Coyne is the national editor for Maclean's, a weekly national newsmagazine in Canada. Previously, he was a columnist with the National Post. He studied at the University of Toronto's University of Trinity College, receiving a BA in economics and history, and he received his master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics.

Coyne has said that he considers the political labels "left" and "right" to be "tribes" of "self-quarantine." He endorses a strong Federal government, more market based economic solutions, and a stronger role for Canada in the War on Terror. Coyne is also a proponent of proportional representation in Canada's House of Commons. - Wikipedia 4-23-2009

andrew coyne.com
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Saturday, July 01, 2006

Don't Tax Property

With the next provincial election less than 16 months away, the premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, is stealing a march on his rivals. Time was when the McGuinty Liberals would issue any number of solemn promises before an election, only to break them afterward. But that’s so 2003. In a bold new approach to campaigning, Mr. McGuinty is now breaking his promises before the election.

Scant weeks ago, the premier was vowing to reform the property tax system, in the wake of a scathing report from the provincial ombudsman on the antics of the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation -- the agency charged with assessing property values across the province, on which municipal property taxes are levied. “I don't think anyone argues that there is not a problem,” Mr. McGuinty told the Ottawa Citizen’s editorial board, “and the Minister of Finance has now become seized with this. As a government, we've become seized with this issue.”

Seized? Seized up is more like it: the government has just announced a two-year freeze on property tax assessments, meaning no changes until, well, until after the election. And what then? Some Ontario voters may recall the Liberals’ promise to maintain an electricity price freeze -- a commitment whose shelf life turned out to be just long enough to get them through the last election.

But let’s assume, just for entertainment’s sake, that the premier meant something like what he said -- that his government is indeed “seized” with the necessity of property tax reform … eventually. What sort of reform is in order? I have a simple suggestion: get rid of it. Don’t reform the property tax. Abolish it.

Over the years, Ontario has adopted or considered nearly every conceivable method of assessing property taxes. We’ve had market value assessment, unit value assessment, and actual value assessment, among others. Each one has tried to address the inequities of the one before, only to throw up even worse injustices of its own. At some point the thought may occur to someone: This is not accidental.

Property tax reform inevitably fails because the property tax is, at bottom, unreformable. It isn’t the method of assessing property values that is the problem: it’s the whole concept of property as a base of taxation that’s flawed. However it may be constructed, the property tax conforms to no known principles of sound taxation, being neither fair, nor efficient, nor simple.

The simplicity part we may take as read: the complexities of assessing the value of every property in the province, every year, inevitably lead to disputes and anomalies, even without the help of multiple competing theories of valuation. But it’s with regard to the other two principles that the tax really falls to the ground.

Sometimes justified as a proxy for ability to pay, or as an index of the cost of services used, in fact it is neither. The value of a property may fluctuate dramatically from year to year for all sorts of reasons, none of which have any bearing on the owner’s ability to pay. The story of the elderly widow in possession of a large house, but with little in the way of disposable income, is far from apocryphal.

Likewise, there is no particular reason why the value of a house should bear any relation to the amount of municipal services it consumes. To the contrary: that cute little semi-detached in downtown Toronto may sell for twice as much as a four-bedroom suburban monster, yet cost a fraction to supply with water, garbage pickup and so on.

There are models of property tax reform, such as unit value assessment, that attempt to bring the assessed value of a house more in line with the cost of servicing it. But why resort to such elaborate indirections? Why not just charge homeowners directly for the services they consume? That is, why not get out of the property tax game altogether?

Real reform of municipal finance would start by charging user fees wherever it was feasible to do so. A beneficial side effect of this would be to open up possibilities for privatization and contracting out: if it is possible to make users pay for a given service, it is ipso facto not a “public good.”

Some services, of course, like fire and police protection, cannot be financed in this way. At any other level of government, these would be paid for out of income or (better yet) sales taxes -- taxes that, whatever their faults, are manifestly simpler, fairer and more efficient than the property tax. So why shouldn’t cities do likewise?

A combination of user fees and a municipal sales tax -- or a dedicated share of the provincial sales tax -- in exchange for an end to the property tax, and with it decades of confusion, unfairness and acrimony: If the Liberals aren’t willing to run on this, perhaps the opposition might.

2009-04-05T19:52:00.002-04:00

I live in Hastings, Oswego County, New York.

A year after we built our house in 2002, our taxes went crazy. I checked with the assessor after the grievance period, and they had our house 1000 square feet bigger than we really are. Was that my fault? No, it was clearly the assessor’s fault. What could I (the taxpayer paying his salary) do about it? NOTHING!!! I had to pay exorbitant property taxes on a house that was 150% bigger than mine, making my assessed value per square foot way higher than everyone else.

The next year, it got jacked up even higher, and the assessor agreed that he had the wrong square footage, but I still had to go to the Board of Assessment Review to correct things. Guess what happened in 2005? There I was, right back up way too high compared to all the other homes in my neighborhood, and back at the board. It’s been the same fight every year.

I like my neighbors, but some are getting a much better deal than I am. Do they like me pointing it out at the B.A.R. every year? What else can I do? What I pay in preposterous property taxes is a vacation my family can’t take every year, compared to some of my neighbors.

Please give your voice to fairness, to stopping the insanity of us all having to compare our property to each other’s.

Please give your voice to getting rid of a system where a sole individual, the assessor, having all the rights and authority, but none of the responsibility of paying for the nearly 10,000 taxing jurisdictions we have in New York.

I’m completely sick of it, and am embarrassed that those that came before us tolerated it for so long. We need to have the guts and the leadership to change things, NOW!

There has got to aggressive action to overhaul the system, or it will fail. There has got to be significant change; and that change has to be that we do not need local governments in 2009!

If this were 1802, and we had no phones, cars, internet, etc.. we would certainly need small governments all over the place. It just does not make sense anymore.

Consolidate all the villages and towns and fire districts and water districts and school districts and whatever else into the County governments, then ABOLISH the property tax!!!!

“The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens.”
—Thomas Jefferson

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Outlines Legal Proposal to Reduce Government Waste and Save Taxpayer Money

2009-03-24T05:07:00.002-04:00

On December 11, 2008, New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo outlined a new legal proposal to give communities across the state the power to reform local governments. As the current fiscal climate continues to financially squeeze communities and residents across the state, Cuomo’s proposal is designed to cut government waste and reduce taxes. Currently, the state is home to over 10,500 governments that saddle residents with the nation’s highest taxes and leaves the state with layers of antiquated government entities and special districts.

The new Law Proposes to Eliminate Legal Barriers that Make it Virtually Impossible for Citizens to Reform Local Government.

This is exactly the leadership that New York State needs, and I applaud the Mr. Cuomo's efforts.

Just Cut Property Taxes! -Forbes Magazine

2009-03-08T01:26:00.002-05:00

Outstanding topic, thank you for having more guts than the politicians for opening a real dialogue.What I had hoped you would say, though, is that we should abolish the 15th-century property tax altogether!

Think of it like this: a stranger (the "assessor") provides an OPINION of what your home might sell for if they were buying; therefore directly affecting the tax you pay compared to all of your neighbors. All on the basis of one person's opinion - you all drive on the same streets, kids use the same schools, etc.., but maybe you or your neighbor pay more than others.

Why should we continue to tolerate this most regressive system of taxation? Do you really own your home, or are you "leasing" from the local government?

What we truly need is an honest discussion of how we can consolidate all (unnecessary) local government fiefdoms to the county level, and offer real value to the taxpayer, funded through a much more fair-to-everyone sales tax, and eliminate the property tax altogether.

www.fairtax.org
www.abolishthepropertytax.blogspot.com

Chris
Central Square, NY

Clinton: Chinese 'Human Rights Can't Interfere' with other Crises

2009-02-24T04:41:00.003-05:00

According to CNN, recently, on a trip to her homeland of Communist China, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broached the issue of human rights with Chinese leaders, but emphasized that the world economic and other crises are more pressing and immediate priorities.

"Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises," Clinton said in talks with China's foreign minister.

This is a very cowardly and ignorant person, who cannot see, or selfishly chooses to ignore, that the "human rights" plight of the poor Chinese worker is the reason for many of the world's ills that she says are "more pressing"!

So, as long as the dollars keep flowing from the US to China, Clinton is indifferent to the continuing economic destruction of the United States middle class, American Manufacturing sector, the Chinese environment, and the substandard wages and rights of the Chinese people.

Her comments disgust me, but don't surprise me, given that the Democrats accepted Chinese campaign money in the 90s and Bill Clinton eventually fought to have China entered into the World Trade Organization. China's entry into the WTO is one of the worst economic moves in US history, causing the extreme detriment of the American economy, as little is made in the US now that items can be made cheaply and irresponsibly (no EPA, no wage laws, no freedom of the press or speech, no unions) in China.

Where can you go to see the irresponsible results of China's takeover of our economy? How about the US food banks and shelters where families of unemployed US workers must eat because the jobs are gone to China. How about the US Financial Industry trying to make money from tricks and phoney-baloney trading practices because real industry and the true ability to pay back debts is gone with the jobs, also.

Check out National Geographic's China issue from May 2008 featuring Brook Larmer's article on the destruction of the Chinese environment, a direct result of Clinton's efforts to get China into the WTO: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05/china/yellow-river/larmer-text

Visit Foreign Policy in Focus' article on the global wage "race to the bottom" and see why large companies have been working in concert with corrupt and indifferent politicians like Hil(arious) Clinton and her husband, and love to hear what she said about ignoring human rights in China at http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3824

We everyday Americans must take our economic distress into our own hands. We must vote for American manufacturers with our dollars. Every purchase is a vote. If you see "Made in China" on the label, do not buy it! Our Secretary of State will be disappointed that you actually care about responsible manufacturing and the jobs of Americans and that you will eventually help the American Economy.

Nixon’s the One — to Imitate on Education

2009-01-02T10:40:00.002-05:00

Great Op-Ed article to the Transitions section of the New York Times published on 12-27-2008 called "Nixon’s the One — to Imitate on Education"

'At a moment when we’ve basically nationalized the banking, mortgage and insurance industries, a little nationalization of school operating costs is in tune with the times.' By MATT MILLER Published: December 27, 2008
Los Angeles

Real Property Tax Reform in New York State

2008-10-05T07:54:00.001-04:00

Real property tax reform in New York State means abolishing this most unfair of taxes.

Why should you pay taxes in proportion to what someone (an assessor) thinks your home MIGHT sell for???

Does the possible selling price of your property have anything at all to do with your true ability to pay more or less taxes than your neighbors?

Let’s continue to offer New York State educations, but pay for it in a much more equitable way - from the coffers of the State through sales tax and low income taxes.

Since the Clinton Democrats outsourced most of the United States manufacturing industry to China, our main economic product is poisonous Chinese junk bought at Wal-Mart, etc.. We do not have the job base that we had twenty years ago, and we are not a colonial agricultural power anymore, either, so let’s stop using the regressive, ancient property tax as a means of funding government services!

Commercial services and consumer product consumption are the main economic drivers in today’s New York State. Most property does not generate income or profits, so it is ludicrous to continue to fund any government services via property taxes.

Perception is NOT Reality

2008-09-21T20:59:00.002-04:00

Real Property Tax Relief means abolishing the property tax and consolidating the multitude of governments that are strangling our families and our economic growth. To insist that a homeowner pay taxes proportionate with their perceived ability to pay is ludicrous!
A retired farm couple with many acres of land may have a high assessed value (which is nothing more than the assessor’s opinion), and will therefore eventually be taxed off their own property.
A working family living in a $100,000 house will pay twice the taxes of a working family living in a $50,000 house; for what??? To satisfy the baloney perception that they can afford it. The family in the $100,000 house may be able to afford their home, but not necessarily the property taxes that go with it.
The proposed New York State property tax “circuit breaker” has the same flaw - it would punish those that are successful or have earned good jobs with higher taxes, just because they can allegedly afford it; according to whom? The reward for hard work and effort is MORE TAXES!
ABOLISH the property tax, replace it with a fair consumption-based tax, where the more wealthy that consume more taxable goods will pay more taxes. We are a smarter state and nation than when the property tax was instituted, and we all deserve better than the current system of “renting” our property from the government from year to year.

Would You Pay for Milk Based on a Stranger's Assessment of Your Home?

2008-09-10T22:39:00.001-04:00

Would or should you be willing to pay to feed your family based on what a stranger thought your house might sell for?

Picture this: Ms. Smith goes to the store for a gallon of milk for her children. The cashier greets her kindly and asks the next person in line, “Mr. Jones, in your OPINION, what might Ms. Smith’s house sell for?” Upon receiving an answer from Mr. Jones (whose opinion is way higher than what Ms. Smith – who actually lives there - thinks the house is worth), the cashier looks up the house value in a table and adjusts Ms. Smith’s milk price accordingly. “But wait”, Ms. Smith protests, “that’s just an OPINION, and why should I pay to feed (or clothe or house) my family based on some stranger’s OPINION, when just last week you sold me that milk for a few dollars less?!?!?” “Well”, replies the cashier, “Mr. Jones has given his assessment of your property’s value, and that’s all there is to it. The burden of proof that your house isn’t worth that much is on you”, but if you want to file a grievance with a board of complete strangers, you can come back ….”

This is the same horrific tragedy that plays out all over America with how we choose to house our families and fund local government functions. Would you register your car based on an opinion of what your house is worth? Would you buy anything based on an opinion of what your house MIGHT sell for? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!

Why do we allow Property Tax to continue? Do people not care? Are already too overworked? Are some getting a “good deal” while others are paying through the nose? Eliminating the property tax will be a very challenging and politically difficult task, but it must happen, and is a noble task to plead with our elected officials for.

An Inexact Science

2008-09-07T22:56:00.000-04:00

The property tax and the income tax should both be abolished and we should fund government services through sales taxes alone, with tremendous emphasis and financial reward for government consolidation.

Think of the wasted hours and dollars spent on "assessment" - someone's OPINION of what your property is worth. Is the assessor's home valued the same as yours? How about their friends' homes? How about their parent's homes? Is there really a concrete method for determining FAIR market value? No, it is an inexact science.

- Are sales taxes an exact fair amount, where you pay more or less taxes based on what you consume? YES!
- Would the rich pay more taxes than the poor with only a sales tax? YES!
- Would you be worried about what your home improvements might do to your property tax bill? NO!
- Would you be concerned about the sale value of your neighbor's house, or whether or not the assessor knows about your neighbor's new in ground pool & Jacuzzi? NO!

With consolidation of governments and school districts into only the county governments, we would save billions in shared service costs.

Are we slaves to the government with no TRUE land ownership? Yes - try not paying your property tax and you'll see that we're all just renting our land from the government based on a tax system that is so completely outdated and absurd that it has been considered the "worst" tax by many tax experts and economics professors.

ABOLISH THE PROPERTY TAX

2008-09-07T22:54:00.001-04:00

This forum is about tax assessments, and my point is simply that we don't need a property tax anymore. It's too easy for the assessor to incorrectly assess your property, whether too high or too low (like for their friends or other cronies in positions of perceived power) because "value" is a subjective thing.

Also, just because someone lives in a nice home, that someone thinks (or even that the "market" shows) is worth a lot of money, that does not mean that they have more money than anyone else, and more importantly, why should home value equate to paying more taxes?

If the goal of taxing the "rich" people that live in big expensive houses is to minimize the tax on the "poor", but assessed value is not a concrete science that will be FAIR, let's abolish it and devise a system like the FairTax (www.fairtax.org). If the "rich" have more disposable income and choose to spend their money on taxable items, they'll pay more taxes. If the "poor" have less money, they'll buy less taxable items and pay less tax. You'll be able to improve your home without fear of the assessor, or such concern for your neighbor's home improvements, either. We could all vote on the state tax rate, and the state taxes collected could pay for everything.

I think we're a smarter state and nation now and can do much, much better than property tax, because:
- Having a property tax does not encourage you to improve your home.
- Having a property tax forces people on fixed incomes out of their homes.
- Having a property tax makes it harder for lower income people to even buy a home.
- Having a property tax is pitting us against one another over what everyone's perception of home value is.
- Having a property tax makes people who live in a house with a "perceived" value of $250k pay twice the taxes of people who live in a house with a "perceived" value of $125k - for what ???? You get no better services, and may even earn the same amount per year or less - it's just a perception issue.

PLEASE ABOLISH THE PROPERTY TAX!!