At 06:01 PM 3/5/2004, you wrote:
What I didn't add: the main reason for moving the ST was to bring property tax relief.
In other words, shift the tax burden from the well-off (property owners) to the less-well-off (the poor, who spend a much higher percentage of their income and thus are much more affected by increases in sales tax).
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Tom Beck
As a well off property owner in a state where the tax is uneven between neighboring houses, to say nothing of towns and counties, I think the property tax should be eliminated. Property tax means you are just renting the land from the government.
Now saying that, I think a modified property tax should be put into play. My top reform would be making government and other exempt groups pay it. I will agree it's stupid for a city to pay taxes to itself for the police building, something like that; yet if a piece of property is for sale and the city can bid higher because it doesn't have to include tax payments in the valuation, everyone loses. The tax payers lose money and a developer loses a change to make an investment, which could be taxed. But worse is an agency owning land in another tax area. Instead of losing money to themselves, they are taking it away from the other tax body.
Second is a simplified cheap one payer system based on square footage (of the land) and usage. Everyone pays, just to keep it honest. If you and neighbor have an acre lot but your house is 100k and his is 500k, so what? His does not use more services. He paid taxes on building or buying the house itself. If he uses more water or electric, he pays for it. A rental property should pay more, but not twice the rate; just enough to mark the difference for services.
My neighbor shouldn't be paying 1/4 what I pay, just because I just bought mine last year and he was here 30 years. (Not basing this on real world example, except for a few people we are all new homeowners.) And I don't want them paying my high rate, I want everyone to pay a lower rate.
But (if your locality is like many, where property taxes are the major source of funding for schools) "what about the children?"
-- Ronn! :)
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