Not paying enough taxes - pay these then
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Just another nice article for the "people aren't paying enough taxes" crowd to choke on.
From The Washington Post, headline is linked.
Property Owners' Burden Rising
Area Home Taxes Foot Bigger Share of Government Costs
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 12, 2005; Page A01
Like many homeowners around Washington, Harry Lowcock is angry. Over the last four years, the tax bill on his Reston area home has jumped nearly $500 annually.
"What is all the money going for?" the 60-year-old translator wondered last week. "I'm not seeing it in better services. Homeowners are becoming cash cows."
He is not alone.
The spectacular boom in Washington area real estate prices over the last five years has been accompanied by staggering increases in home tax bills as many local governments have spurned significant tax cuts in favor of reaping billions more from homeowners.
Elected leaders, in announcing their annual budgets in recent weeks, often have boasted of slashing home tax rates. But a review of five years of local budgets shows that those tax-rate cuts have been far too small to offset the climb in home values, and, as a result, average tax bills in much of the region have gone up as much as 70 percent in just five years.
Those taxes are being channeled into rapidly expanding budgets for schools, police and other services, but they are not just boosting spending. They are shifting a larger share of the burden of government costs onto homeowners.
Five years ago in much of Northern Virginia, for example, home taxes paid for roughly one-third of local government spending. The rest came mostly from businesses and other sources.
This year, the share of the cost of local government borne by homeowners has grown to nearly a half.
For the average homeowner in the District and Northern Virginia, where the tax increases have been steepest, the tax bill will have jumped 60 percent or more over five years under this year's budget proposals, leaving the typical owner to pay as much as $2,000 more in annual taxes than five years ago.
In Loudoun and Arlington counties, the average tax bills have risen fastest, often more than doubling over five years, based on new rates.
... more at linked article
I'll concede that the people paying these higher taxes are in many cases living in homes that have skyrocked into the $500,000 and higher assessed value range. That apparently makes many of these home owners "rich" and leaves the local governments not feeling guilty about taking the money from all of these people.
People in this area are becoming home poor, with skyrocketing payments -- including these much higher tax assessments -- that are eating up the incomes of the people that had enough income to buy the homes when the took the mortgage, but now are left struggling to make ends meet. Even older folks - like my in-laws as an example - who are on a fixed income and own their own homes are not immune. As the housing market boom as driven up prices on the market, the assessors have noticed, raised the assessed values, and left people getting bills that are several times higher than they anticipated. Eventually the taxes become so onerous that people are forced to sell their homes and move into smaller homes, which can be disastrous if the seller isn't able to take advantage of allowances for home sale cap gains.
Of course it doesn't matter that poor home owners are hit just as hard, if not harder, than the rich folks are. They're innocent victims, and can be sacrificed in the name of collecting more for the state and local coffers which can be wasted in any number of ways.
So, again, you folks that keep telling us that we need higher taxes, do you want to tell that to these home owners? Hell, I'll give you a semi-free pass here - you might actually be able to cover your tracks if you suggest that these people should be paying the same taxes that they did back in the 90's, but I'll just shoot you back down when I point out that they may, in some cases, be paying lower tax rates, but still be paying much higher tax bills because the higher taxes are really coming from the higher assessments, not necessarily the actual tax rates.
I hope that some other visitors to Joe User are lucky enough to be victimized by some of these higher taxes so they can scream blue bloody murder about how they're over-taxed, and how the rich should be bearing more of the load. Then they might actually be forced to define rich and really figure out that "rich" is a lot more of the U.S.A. than many people want to admit.
From The Washington Post, headline is linked.
Property Owners' Burden Rising
Area Home Taxes Foot Bigger Share of Government Costs
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 12, 2005; Page A01
Like many homeowners around Washington, Harry Lowcock is angry. Over the last four years, the tax bill on his Reston area home has jumped nearly $500 annually.
"What is all the money going for?" the 60-year-old translator wondered last week. "I'm not seeing it in better services. Homeowners are becoming cash cows."
He is not alone.
The spectacular boom in Washington area real estate prices over the last five years has been accompanied by staggering increases in home tax bills as many local governments have spurned significant tax cuts in favor of reaping billions more from homeowners.
Elected leaders, in announcing their annual budgets in recent weeks, often have boasted of slashing home tax rates. But a review of five years of local budgets shows that those tax-rate cuts have been far too small to offset the climb in home values, and, as a result, average tax bills in much of the region have gone up as much as 70 percent in just five years.
Those taxes are being channeled into rapidly expanding budgets for schools, police and other services, but they are not just boosting spending. They are shifting a larger share of the burden of government costs onto homeowners.
Five years ago in much of Northern Virginia, for example, home taxes paid for roughly one-third of local government spending. The rest came mostly from businesses and other sources.
This year, the share of the cost of local government borne by homeowners has grown to nearly a half.
For the average homeowner in the District and Northern Virginia, where the tax increases have been steepest, the tax bill will have jumped 60 percent or more over five years under this year's budget proposals, leaving the typical owner to pay as much as $2,000 more in annual taxes than five years ago.
In Loudoun and Arlington counties, the average tax bills have risen fastest, often more than doubling over five years, based on new rates.
... more at linked article
I'll concede that the people paying these higher taxes are in many cases living in homes that have skyrocked into the $500,000 and higher assessed value range. That apparently makes many of these home owners "rich" and leaves the local governments not feeling guilty about taking the money from all of these people.
People in this area are becoming home poor, with skyrocketing payments -- including these much higher tax assessments -- that are eating up the incomes of the people that had enough income to buy the homes when the took the mortgage, but now are left struggling to make ends meet. Even older folks - like my in-laws as an example - who are on a fixed income and own their own homes are not immune. As the housing market boom as driven up prices on the market, the assessors have noticed, raised the assessed values, and left people getting bills that are several times higher than they anticipated. Eventually the taxes become so onerous that people are forced to sell their homes and move into smaller homes, which can be disastrous if the seller isn't able to take advantage of allowances for home sale cap gains.
Of course it doesn't matter that poor home owners are hit just as hard, if not harder, than the rich folks are. They're innocent victims, and can be sacrificed in the name of collecting more for the state and local coffers which can be wasted in any number of ways.
So, again, you folks that keep telling us that we need higher taxes, do you want to tell that to these home owners? Hell, I'll give you a semi-free pass here - you might actually be able to cover your tracks if you suggest that these people should be paying the same taxes that they did back in the 90's, but I'll just shoot you back down when I point out that they may, in some cases, be paying lower tax rates, but still be paying much higher tax bills because the higher taxes are really coming from the higher assessments, not necessarily the actual tax rates.
I hope that some other visitors to Joe User are lucky enough to be victimized by some of these higher taxes so they can scream blue bloody murder about how they're over-taxed, and how the rich should be bearing more of the load. Then they might actually be forced to define rich and really figure out that "rich" is a lot more of the U.S.A. than many people want to admit.