Appealing Taxes - lowering crippling property taxes

People don't know how to cut spending if they don't know who is getting the tax money.

 

Never tell the board or the tax assessor that you are appealing your taxes - you are appealing your assessment. You are seeking equalization in assessment to similar properties such as yours.

Appealing your taxes is another matter. What follows is an attempt to show you how you can appeal your taxes.

The whole property tax discussion is moot unless elected leaders realize that any part of government that spends the tax dollar doesn't’t matter to a taxpayer — it’s the dollars that are removed from their pocket and their family that hurt. The only way to reduce taxes is to CUT SPENDING!

Local and state government must limit spending. There is a need to organize grassroots support if no organization exists. Taxes, tariffs - the government heaping on it's tax lead puts economic brakes on good times. Historians and economists all agree that the bill to add taxes via the Smooth-Hawley Tariff Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot-Hawley_Tariff_Act  if not causing The Great Depression, deeply worsened it by reducing international trade, causing a tariff war to erupt and made goods and services more expensive for the working class.

First, one could write letters to the editor, letters to other people who would support the cause by donating postage stamps to offset mailing expense. Some one with the time to devote to the cause hopefully will need step up to the plate and take charge in getting political support organized for electing hard-core cost cutting politicians into office.

A taxpayers web site could be set up in order to keep all informed and give factual political ammunition. Anyhow, here are a few issues that could be addressed:

• Collect salary information on public employees at the local level and county and state level especially including benefits and special treatment for health care, annuities, pensions factoring early retirement costs plus various other perks on us taxpayers backs. People don't know how to cut spending if they don't know who is getting the tax money.

• Hold lawmakers accountable. Citizens Against Government Waste say, in 2005, $27.3 billion was raised by skillfully asking for and getting dollars for local programs ... like the now infamous $300 million dollar Alaskan bridge to nowhere. http://www.truthlaidbear.com names Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va (got over 1 bil.) and Sen. Ted Steves, R-Alaska as the #1 and 2 top Porkmeisters.

• All that construction you see around you is bound to be reflected in your property taxes - even if you can't afford it. The local town spends it like a free water spigot. A lot of the money comes for the county, state or the Feds. We need pit bull watch dogs elected in office to monitor these extravagances and implement strict accountability.  Pork barrel grafters should be put in jail not in political office.

Urban land developers and contractors constantly lobby for improved sewer systems. If your town does not have a sewer system, water disposal treatment plants and pipeline systems, fight against getting them. Once state and federal aid shows up there are strings. Urban land developers and contractors will want to build high rises, shopping malls, condos, and townhouses. They need sewers. Unbuildable land becomes build able. Traffic tension increases. The state and fed money has strings that will force affordable and low-income housing. And, that sweet suburbia you called home now becomes another negatively influence urban jungle. Tell me again, why did you moved from the city to the country? (note: to get a building permit, you are allowed to have your septic with in 50 feet of your well. This means your water is filtered pure of septic contaminants at this distance. So, is the only reason you need a sewer system based on the fact if you live on a rock the land won't perk? Or, is that rock a high-intensity septic use high rise?)

• 70 to 80 percent of your property tax bill attributable to spending driven by local decisions — not decisions at the state level. Property taxes pay for roads, trash collection, local law enforcement, local schools, local road funding, fire departments, schools, parks, other infrastructure expenses and a host of local services.

• Consider distributing the tax burden to apartment dwellers pay no taxes for their children. Apartment developers should kick in their fair share to build. Existing landlords should share the burden.

• Since we only pay taxes on stock gains, we could consider treating property appreciation similarly, paying only when it is sold and the gain actually realized. Alternatively, a transfer fee (i.e., a sales tax on homes) would more fairly provide revenue than the present system.

• Use of real estate transfer taxes as a revenue source. Rehoboth, Delaware city's single biggest revenue source remains the realty transfer tax that stems from property sales. City Mayor Sam Cooper doesn't want Rehoboth to rely so heavily on that money that totals about $2 million each year and funds Rehoboth's operational costs, including city workers' salaries. (The tax is based on the 1968 valuation of land and buildings. A tax now, Jan 2006, for an average lot and home worth $26,535 at that time, for instance, is about $371. )

• "China only taxes residential property sales and rental transactions -- not their value. Only business property is annually taxed." Orange County News, David Damron | Sentinel Staff Writer Posted August 24, 2005

• Consider distributing the tax burden to developer of more than 1-bedroom homes. When a new 3 or 4-bedroom home is built and sold it usually goes to a family with kids. Public education costs the town about $10,000 per child. That new home that will house 2 kids will cost local taxpayers for K-12 grade about $250,000. Developers should kick in some big bucks before your town gives the green light!

• Put a cap on business and commercial taxes. They give the big bang in taxes collected. By not putting a cap on the taxes and or by reducing increase to a minimum, business will not be driven off. Growth of commercial property taxes, saying they're the biggest roadblock to attracting new businesses. Business provide taxes, employment and they don't have those expensive kids like residential's have to send to school.

Schools

• A competitive free enterprise educational environment for performance and funding automatically rewards performance at better school districts. Parents need to have a choice where to send their kids and it has be tied to dollars. If a district school looses a kid to another school district it would cost that school district $10,000 or more. The government can't run a railroads efficiently, social security ... the government health care system in Canada is a disaster. Why should we put them in charge of education.

A unreformed school district ( not in competition with another school district and not in direct competition to earn the $10,000 or more /per student bounty) will not self-discipline if not forced to work within budget. A voucher program that puts public schools on equal footing with private schools, as well as other public schools, and that requires removal of funding as a consequences for educators better ensures accountability.

Public sector teacher unions can model trade unions. Trade unions have no long term work guarantees. When the job is finished the worker goes back into the non-paid worker pool. There he waits until the next job calls for his labor. Featherbedding is not possible - the employer for the union worker has budget constraints, performance and profit priorities.

There is no tenure like the teachers unions. If there is no work, you are out of a job. If you can't do the job, you are replaced by someone who can do the job. If you can't get along with the boss you are replaced.

There are no wage increases for trade unions reflection years of service. There are 5 pay scales: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year apprentice and journeyman. After 5 years you should know what you are doing. If not, it is at anyone's discretion to end the relationship. No reason needs to be given. The out of work employee simply signs the list for available jobs and has the next choice of available jobs.

• School committees in some states act autonomously. It needs to become law that city council approve all school committee contracts and these contracts run year to year. No tenure, just like the real world. When you screw up, you don't get a buyout compensation package. You're just out of a job.

• Private school tuition's ranges $4-8,000 per year and they achieve better test scores. Perhaps private school choice could be encouraged. (However over 600 Islamic schools in America indoctrinate 30,000 kids each day in the militant teaching of the Quran as reported in IBD 1/27/05. Encouraging a breeding ground for terrorists may not be such a grand idea.)

• Teacher salaries and teacher educational incentive need to be reviewed. The public does not need excessive teacher compensations for $100,00 per year at a elementary school or high school level.

• School superintending is an administrative job. You can find an excellent administrator for under 100 grand. Recently in a small NJ Hopatcong suburb, it was revealed Superintendent Wayne Threkeld 2005 annual compensation was $221,880 plus contract perks for the year. Since superintending a school, apparently when all the duck are in place, is not a full-time job, he found extra time to hold down another $25,000 state part-time job.

• Grandiose school buildings, football fields, auditoriums, excessive administration salaries and no bid contracts are other areas that may need to be addressed.

• Multiple computers exist in almost every class room one visits but no one can type. What a waste in educational financial resources! Not only are resources underutilized, unnecessary spending occurs by ascribing to ideas that prove impractical and cost excessive for no reason at all.

• Install cameras in busses to monitor passengers, as opposed to paying bus monitors. Encourage private transportation vouchers for parents to drive their kids to school, consolidate bus routes and number of buses.

• Grounds keeping can be outsourced. Juvenile detention inmates and low-risk prisons could do local and county ground keeping. Not only would it be cheap, fools would learn a valuable life lessons and insight how to earn a living.

Public Jobs

• Seriously consider privatization of public jobs in order to lower taxes. Less state workers equal lower taxes.

• Private sector employees often pay fifty percent of their health care costs, and many self-employed workers pay 100 percent. Perhaps all state workers should pay their own health care costs or at least have a portion of it on the table for negotiation. Or, consider special drug expenses, dental care, eye care, … fit-for-royalty health care extras that should come out of state workers pockets, not the taxpayers.

• Higher pension costs for retired school employees put added pressure on school board budgets. By stabilizing the costs and keeping cost-of-living increases affordable by tying COLAs to increased employee contributions may be an answer. Otherwise future increases in state budgets and increased local taxpayer contributions to meet growing pension obligations will be the norm.

• Public sector unions should model trade unions. Trade unions have no long term work guarantees. When the job is finished the worker goes back into the non-paid worker pool. There he waits until the next job calls for his labor. Featherbedding is not possible - the employer for the union worker has budget constraints and profit priorities and won't tolerate wasted job time.

There is no tenure like the teachers unions. If you can't do the job, you are replaced by someone who can do the job. If you can't get along with the boss you are replaced.

There are no wage increases for trade unions reflection years of service. There are 5 pay scales: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year apprentice and journeyman. After 5 years you should know what you are doing. If not, it is at anyone's discretion to end the relationship. No reason needs to be given. The out of work employee simply sign up for another job, and if he's/she's has a good reputation, that's even better. Now that's independence!

In 1819, John Marshall wrote, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." By allowing the government to tax our property, we have compromised our freedom of ownership. If we refuse to pay our property taxes, the government will essentially "take" our homes via liens. This violates the basic American freedom to be safe and secure in one’s home without the threat of government confiscation.

Cicero recognized this more than 2,000 years ago when he wrote that the first duty of government is to ensure that "private citizens suffer no invasion of their property rights by an act of the state."If you don't get a tax fighter into political office with true grit and courage to cut the fat you loose. Think you'll find a politician who will campaign to cut teachers pensions and benefits? Police and fireman's retirement pensions and benefits? Their own pensions and benefits? Think a mob informant is hard to find, how about a tax cutting conservative?

The majority of people on our planet believe in living peacefully and to be able to work and feed their families with what they earn.
Our collective future will look brighter by eradicating poverty and ignorance using responsible public servents. The master is the public, the servent is the state (in the United States, almost all nations it is the other way around).

No state worker should ever be paid more than their private sector counterpart or enjoy more perks. It the state worker needs to earn more or altruistically desires to contribute to the state, let him/her join the private sector.

High taxes, high housing costs and slow growth eventually results in the workforce moving elsewhere. If history is a guide, workers will move to an area where the cost of homes is not a burden and eventually the jobs will follow the workforce.

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