| Author |
Message |
    
Yvette
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 4:28 pm: |     |
Nj, Okay I am not making myself clear. So let me re-phrase.
Why was the reval done - because everyone was not paying a fair share of taxes based on the current value of their homes
My point is although we all are paying 10% of the 1981 assessments, based on current values some are paying 3, 4 5% and others are paying 10 and higher and that's why with the reval some taxes are going way up and some are going way down.
You understand me now? |
Yvette
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 4:34 pm: | |
Nj, I read your numbers wrong... |
Waynecaviness
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 4:42 pm: | |
It appears that what Yvette is trying to say is that the tax rate is one thing, while the $ amount of taxes paid as a percentage of market value is something else again.
Which is of course true. Not all homes have appreciated at the same pace. The tax dollars that we are all paying are derived from the same base amount of taxes relative to the assessed valuation, i.e., we are all paying taxes at the same tax rate.
But Yvette is contending (I think) that when measured against the actual market value of our homes, some are paying lower percentages of taxes than others.
This, of course, is intuitively true. Some neighborhoods have appreciated while others have not, or at least not as much.
Do I understand you correctly? |
Lseltzer
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 4:47 pm: | |
I think it's a mistake to say that someone's taxes are going down because someone else's taxes are going up, or vice-versa. That only follows if the value of someone's house is going down because the value of someone else's house is going up. The events are largely independent of each other. One person's taxes go up in this town because the value of their house is going up faster than the average increase in property values in the town.
If you want to follow the logic that my taxes going down forces your taxes up, it's just as true that I'm overpaying now because you're underpaying now. Actually, the logic for that is much better. |
Nicky
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 4:49 pm: | |
Bacata:
I'm curious. How long do you think you have been overpaying in taxes? |
Yvette
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 4:56 pm: | |
Exactly Wayne! |
Eb1154
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 5:00 pm: | |
Njjoseph,
I think Yvette is trying to say: if you take the amount of taxes you are currently paying (10K) and then take your new assessment (375k) the percent is different than a person paying 5k on a house now assessed at 135K. Atleast that's what I think Yvette is trying to say, if it is... she is right.
Mr jfd, I didn't say I was ovepaing for 10 years.
You will get your refund as soon as I do!!! You are right about having the choice to move back then, but I guess I'll have to stay now that the taxes were decreased, or atleast mine were.
Flof, who has the whiny voice? Not me. My taxes are being decrease why would I whine about that? I am only pointing out the facts to those who are whinning about an unfair increase. Again I ask you why is it unfair and why was the reval flawed? Because you don't like the results?
You say it is not your fault for whatever financial situation taxes have put me in. Nor is it my fault for the situation you are in because of the increase. You see it goes both ways!!! You can't trash me for saying something and then say the same thing to prove your point.
And let me correct you once again. It was Ellen Davenport who met with Sen. Rice about the Bill not Jerry. And, I'm sure that if the town tries to phase in the decreases they will hear from those who are getting decreased. And I bet they can be as loud as the people screaming at the TC meetings when they felt they were getting screwd.
The key word there bieng "felt". On the contrary we will have the proof of being screwd and I'm sure we would win every appeal. |
Bix
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 5:20 pm: | |
NJ,
Why is it your job to explain the system to these folks? It should be clear to you that you are not getting through to Yvette, Bacata or eb1154.
Save yourself some grief, man.
Same to ffof. Some people cannot see the whole picture. They think they have a lottery ticket in their hands and you're trying to take it away.
Do not get between Bacata and a couple hundred dollars!
Bix |
Waynecaviness
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 5:21 pm: | |
Good point by Lseltzer. One person's taxes up/down is not the cause of another person's taxes up/down. It is a zero sum game, in that an increase/decrease by one has to be offset somewhere else, but thats not cause and effect. Cause and effect is changes in relative valuations.
And lets be clear about this aspect of one person's taxes up/down while someone else's is necessarily up/down: it is illegal to evade taxes; it is totally acceptable to minimize one's taxes to the best of one's ability.
We are all free agents. If we were overpaying in taxes, there has always been an appeal process. If you didn't avail yourself of the appeal process in the past, don't whine now. (Most posters to this board haven't, but some have.) Don't blame anyone else. If you are, in your opinion, being asked to overpay in the future, there is an appeal process. If so and you aren't availing yourself of the appeal process now, don't whine. (Most posters to this board haven't, but some have.) Don't blame anyone else. The appeal process has been and continues to be available to all.
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the current appeal process remains to be seen. But you have to start there. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 6:29 pm: | |
Eb- Unfortunately I think you only read what you want to read in the posts on this board. Put it this way, in a few years (maybe 10?) when the whole real estate picture has changed and you're facing an increase and I'm facing a decrease in taxes, I will support a phase-in for you. Now, will you stop being so antagonistic?
Bacata- You have never, will never and are never loaning me any d**n money! It's a convenient little argument you've got going there for your financial straits but frankly, my dear, "grow up" (your words)
Bix- thanks for the advice!
Ffof |
Melidere
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 7:14 pm: | |
i STILL don't understand, and no one has ever answered...how you appeal an assessment that is clearly under market...but not fair 'relative' to other houses.
case in point...house valued at 73,000. 10 years later house valued at 100,000 but other houses on other side of town valued at 73,000 have gone up to 500,000.
How do you appeal your 'relative' tax in that situation? Clearly it has been done by someone...but when everyone is blithely pointing out that people had this opportunity, i'd like them to explain to me exactly how that argument would be constructed.
It never even crossed my mind, even knowing that i was overpaying...that i would be able to contest it since the market value was clearly more than assessed. |
Melidere
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 7:16 pm: | |
let's put it this way. Let's imagine that due to the tax increase on the west side...the market is weak, but demand continues to be strong, so prices just stay the same as assessed value.
At the same time...houses on the east side double.
how do you appeal? Your house on the west side is worth exactly what they say it is. How do you appeal that your 'relative' value has decreased?
That's not a terribly unlikely scenario. How would it work? |
Bobk
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 7:24 pm: | |
Yvette, Bacata and eb1154
Basically no sane person with any degree of fairness thinks a reval is not justified.
However, no sane person with any degree of fairness thinks that CV did anything approaching a good job. The magnitude of the changes surprised everyone, including the TC. Errors were made all over the place and since thousand of dollars are at stake people are questioning their assessments. Very few people, even the hill dwellers, have a spare five or six thousand a year to pay out without making sure that the assessment was fair and impartial.
In a more sane world decreases would have been limited to around 20% and increases to 20% or 25%, except in a few very unusual situations. Things would have gone through with only minor wimpering on all sides instead of the hissy fits that are now taking place. More importantly the harmony of our town would have been maintained.
OK, I am now trading my soap box in for a Razor scooter and will scoot quietly off into the night. |
Ffof
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 9:44 pm: | |
Don't forget your helmet...it's the law!!
Ffof |
Dytunck
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 10:10 pm: | |
Bobk,
Allow me to add to your point. I will use only facts here, no opinions.
"Township Committee members also expressed dismay with Certified, saying the company handled the public 'abyssmally.'" (Jerry Ryan's word) - exepted from News-Record from Columbia High Meeting.
"They failed us repeatedly." - Mayor Victor De Luca
"This is not at the way I thought it would be. I would have guessed the distribution would have been a little flatter down the middle." - Committeeman Jerry Ryan
"Certified was not as forthcoming with information as I would have liked them to be, and if there were mistakes made, those mistakes need to be acknowledged and corrected quickly." - Committeeman Jerry Ryan
"I'm concerned about the methodology. We want to know specifically how they went about doing this." - Commiteeman Burt Liebman
"Our assumption is that Certified knew there were errors and they're going to correct what needs to be corrected." - Mayor Victor De Luca
Fact: Millburn has delayed their revaluation due to the work performed by Certified Valuations in Maplewood.
Fact: The Township Committee asked for - and received an extension for the certification of the new property assessments.
Fact: The Township Committee has hired two consultants to audit the work of Certified Valuatuions.
Fact: The Township Assessor has stated publically that the assessments are based on actual sales from the year 2000 only.
Fact: Of the 422 actual sales in 2000, only 1 sale matched its assessed value.
I will refrain from editorializing on this post. I will let the facts speak for themselves.
To my fellow Maplewoodians: Illegitimum non carborundum.
Dytunck |
Yvette
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 10:26 pm: | |
Bix - He is not explaining anything to us, we all are posting our opinions. DUH!
Bobk - if another reval was done and similar numbers were given without the erros - would you still call it insane fairness?
And according to the numbers Gerry posted only 25.2% are getting increases, that seems to comply in your "more sane world". |
Dytunck
| | Posted on Friday, February 9, 2001 - 10:44 pm: | |
Yvette,
You are a victim of a campaign of complicated data to confuse people with the facts.
These are facts from the revaluation spreadsheet made public:
There were 3,259 increases
124 tax exempt properties, (so these should not be counted,) and
3,964 decreases.
My math says that of the taxable properties, (total of 7,223) 45% increased. 55% decreased. This has been stated before.
Should our budget be raised at the same level as in the past, you can assume another 5% will go in to the "increase" portion. As it stands, it's 45%, not 25.2% It's going to 50%.
Please check your facts.
Dytunck |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Saturday, February 10, 2001 - 12:15 am: | |
Ffof: As long as my overpayment finances someone else's underpayment (zero sum game, remember?) I am loaning/subsidizing, call it what you like, money to those individuals and to the town. As you so eloquently note, my "financial straits" do not really allow me to call myself a bank.
Bix: try to take the sneer out of your voice when you speak of several hundred or several thousand dollars. That's exactly the attitude that is splitting this town. And over 9 years, it has been more than a "couple hundred" I assure you. Maybe several times increase you seem to feel unable to face.
Nicky: apparently since I bought a home here in Maplewood 9 years ago. I've posted elsewhere, including this week, how I came to that understanding. Please see a response to Lisat for the details. Thanks.
Please read Melidere's post on appealing taxes based on those ridiculous 1981 assessments. I'm getting tired of trying to explain the same things over and over to people who don't give a d**n.
If you have NOT been underpaying or overpaying relative to the value of your home, then you don't need to be in this argument. If you have been underpaying, what is the problem with paying your fair share now??? "I didn't have to pay before so why should I pay now?" Not really a good argument. If your assessment seems incorrect, I do hope you filed an appeal. If you are unwilling to do that then I guess you're more interested in noise than anything else.
Bacata |
Ffof
| | Posted on Saturday, February 10, 2001 - 8:26 am: | |
Bacata- You have not been "subsidizing" anyone who you feel has been "underpaying". Everyone pays taxes by law. You may analyze the numbers every which way until sunday, but everyone pays what the law says. You want to talk subsidy? My old taxes of $11,400 are plain and simple more than whatever your tax bill was. With the new taxes mine will be close to $16,000 - even a bigger difference. Sure, it's tied into the value of your home, but their is no subsidizing going on here. And ps. who is saying they have a "problem paying their fairshare"? I've never said that and I don't really read that into many posts here. What villain are you looking for? You know, Octofoil had a good point about your posts in the thread before this one.
Dytunck - Thankyou for collecting those quotes as posted above.
Ffof |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Saturday, February 10, 2001 - 4:13 pm: | |
No, we have not been paying what the law says. That is the whole point. The law says we pay a percentage based on the market value of our homes. It is now known that the 1981 valuations were "flattened" under the erroneous notion that since we all had access to the same services, we should all pay similar amounts. Nice idea in some ways BUT, that was not the law then and it is not the law now. Furthermore, due to changes in the market, the discrepancies in home values in different neighborhoods have become even more extreme. (Do I really have to keep explaining this basic stuff?!) Had a reval been done 10 years ago, it would have mitigated the problems created by the erroneous assumptions of the 1981 reval and corrected most of the errors that kept socking the Hilton/Orchard section to the benefit of the Jefferson section. Yes, certain portions of town UNINTENTIONALLY benefitted from the errors. The fact that it was unintentional does not mean it did not happen. It also does not mean that it should not be corrected now. Not OVERcorrected. Corrected to the current market conditions. No more and no less. According to the law.
But it wasn't done ten or even 5 years ago. The situation is now much more polarized. As are the economic realities. So we have to deal with that. What do you think your "fair share" is, under the law??? Are you contesting your assessment? If not, why not? Since you obviously feel that the 16,000 is somehow inaccurate. Have you exhausted your appeals process? No, obviously. No one has.
What is it you are advocating, exactly, ffof?
Bacata |
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