How threatened is your future because of uncontrollable property taxes?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

http://nytimes.com/2006/02/19/realestate/19property.html?hp&ex=1140325200&en=84f9d5c4af04e2dd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

As Property Values Rise, Homeowners Feel Pinch

By RICK LYMAN
Published: February 19, 2006
BOISE, Idaho — Charlotte Snow assails the rising property taxes on her 33-acre spread here in the windswept foothills above the state capital.

"I've got a tarp on my roof and plastic on my windows to keep the heat in," Ms. Snow said. "I never intended to live like this. But I don't have enough to pay my property tax bill, much less keep the place fixed up."

For several days this month, Ms. Snow sat and watched as a panel of Idaho legislators heard testimony about a battery of proposals, more than three dozen of them designed to ease voter anxiety about the state's skyrocketing property taxes. When her time came to testify, amid a parade of economists, homeowners, lobbyists and statehouse gadflies, she wept and begged the state to do something to save the rural life she had come to Idaho to enjoy.

skipNearly everyone complains about their property taxes, but Ms. Snow seems to have a particular point. In the last year, when her land on the edge of Boise's creeping sprawl was reclassified to residential property from agricultural, her taxes rose to $10,871 from $2,200.

This is happening all over the country. What I notice in my own area is that the municple budget bloated unbelievably due to the incredible escalation in property values. My mother's one sentence economic theory - Expenses rise to meet income.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. I suspect that this really hits "Low Tax" states

Where income taxes are low or non existant, the more regressive sales and property taxes pick up the slack. In 2004 I was looking at real estate in Texas and was shocked at the high property taxes for even low cost houses.

[RufusEarl]

2. Federal government

With the feds cutting income by way of tax cuts for the wealthy, it also means how much money the feds can send states. Since the states are not longer getting funds from the feds, they are raising state taxes to cover expense on the back of home owners.

Bu$h's plan to distory our federal government seems to be working very well, as a matter a fact it's just about the right size now to drown in a bath tub.

[Captain Hilts]

3. My aunt and uncle [retired] in Danbury, CT are being thwacked by them. nt

[demosincebirth]

4. They need something like Prop 13, passed in Ca in 1976

It gives home owners in '76, protection from runaway property taxes as long as you own the property.

[Captain Hilts]

5. Prop 13 killed government services in California.

Education, etc.

There needs to be a graduated, non-regressive means of applying property taxes.
But, with the Feds expecting states to pay more, and states ditching progressive taxes such as those on autos, it's become a squeeze.

This issue will become further ignited by talk at the federal level of getting rid of the mortgage payment tax deduction.

[demosincebirth]

8. If it wasn't for prop 13, many seniors that own homes could not

afford to live in them.

What they should do, in Ca, is exempt commercial and industrial property from prop 13. That would solve many of the budget problems in the state.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Or at a minimum, revise the rules on what constitutes a property transfer

for commercial property. Very little residential property is still taxed on the 1976 base year because most existin properties have been sold at least once in the past 25 years and with the phenomenal growth in the state, the sheer number of residences built (and therefore purchased) has reduced the pre-1976ers as a fraction of the total residential property base.

The perecentage of commercial properties still benefiting from pre-1976 rates is much higher because only majority sales invoke a reassessment. Many properties are sold in increments of under 50% for just that reason.

Prop. 13 has flaws (hereditary transfer of the tax rate is something else that needs to be revised and the state control of education distribution doesn't work, to mention two) but it does provide a predictable basis for property tax increases. That's why hell will freeze over before it's overturned.

[Zinfandel]

15. Maybe in 2008 when the republican fascist finally put an end to fairness..

They'll be able to raise property tax just on the liberals, progressives, democrats and people who practice Yoga and/or drive a Volvo!

[Dr.Phool]

6. We have a little bit of protection in Florida

Property taxes can increase no more than 3% per year, as long as you own the house, and occupy it. However, it's reappraised at the resale value when you sell it.

What's really killing us are insurance costs. Insurance costs are killing a lot of home sales. Some peoples monthly insurance is higher than their mortgage payment.

[tsuki]

12. Insurance costs have doubled, and the Jebbles has declared that

insurance companies may raise health, auto, workers' comp, liability to cover the cost of what they paid out in home owners insurance.

[mainer]

7. My property taxes nearly tripled in one year!

The county assessed it at a third MORE than we'd paid for it only six months earlier. When we pointed out that assessed value is supposed to be the same as market value, and shouldn't they use the actual purchase price, they told us, "Lucky you! Your property value increased a third in six months!"

My husband and I are already resigned to leaving this house before we retire, because at the rate the taxes are going up, we'll have to move.

[pitohui]

10. well move to louisiana

no property tax on modest homes under $75,000 and get your assessment frozen at age 65 so you won't be priced out of your house in old age

i don't know why all states don't do this frankly

trouble is right now we sort of have a shortage of housing at any price thanks to the storms but i sure can't complain abt property tax

it is frankly difficult for me to be over concerned abt someone w. 33 acres saying her property tax is too high, she can sell some of the acreage and probably make a fortune now that she is re-zoned residential

[demosincebirth]

11. If they did that in Ca, they would have to shut down all the sclools

[cyanide]

13. I know

I'm retired on a fixed income

taxes keep going up -- income stays the same.

Don't know how long I will be able to keep the house.

Thanks Mr Bush

Me and the wife are going to have to give our dog away it has become that bad. Can't afford her.

[newyawker99]

16. Hi cyanide!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Zinfandel]

14. Sell out? Subdivide? Get rich quick? Fuck the environment & everyone else?

The American way?

[baldguy]

17. Those million dollar McMansions don't like to have cows as neighbors.