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nwyave
Citizen
Username: Mesh
Post Number: 142
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 7:49 pm: | 
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Paying my quarterly garbage disposal costs - noticed another increase - 8%! Are these essentially annual increases? This is certainly another tax, just one that is not paid to the municipality. The situation is ridiculous - we need a new governor who is willing to stand up and address the property tax situation - less studies and talk should be replaced with more action.
Seems pretty simple to me, replace the heavy burden of financing the state from property taxes to income taxes - simply a lot more progressive of a tax. |
sac
Citizen
Username: Sac
Post Number: 889
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 8:11 pm: |
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Unfortunately, a lot of people don't see it that way. And it is politically unpopular (to put it mildly) to even suggest income tax increases.
Most of us who have been here for a few years can remember the impact of the widely touted income tax cuts of the Whitman era ... my family's income taxes went down a few hundred dollars while our property tax increases were an order of magnitude higher (i.e. measured in thousands rather than hundreds.) And this was before factoring in the much maligned "reval". We were/are a relatively high income family in a "middle" Maplewood home. The situation was ever so much worse for folks on lower/fixed incomes in homes that had appreciated greatly over the years they had owned them. |
nwyave
Citizen
Username: Mesh
Post Number: 143
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2004 - 8:50 pm: |
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I was too vague, I meant to add one more thing.
At the end of the day the $s will have to come from somewhere. I don't think that there will be a mysterious decrease in the total $s that the state needs to operate. In my opinion, what is happening though are two items.
- there are ridiculous boundaries that divide communities that result in very similar areas having wide disparaties in property taxes
- that I would add that the above point is compounded with very affluent people paying less than there share of the burden - hence I think an income tax, which should be progressively formulated, would address that. |
sac
Citizen
Username: Sac
Post Number: 890
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004 - 11:46 am: |
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You will find many (including myself) who agree with you, at least in philosophy. However, clearly there are many people and/or businesses who pay less under the current system and apparently they hold the political sway (whether justified or not.)
There is also a general antipathy toward income taxes so many people who would benefit from such a change don't realize that is the case and are swayed by politically motivated arguments against any income tax increase.
Another issue is that our current system does support a great deal of local control (which is also more costly, but that's another subject.) Income taxes generally have to be assessed by the state and then returned (under some formula and likely with "conditions") back to the school districts, while property taxes are assessed and collected locally where the dollars are spent. I would like to see the authorities that spend the money be the ones authorized to assess and collect the taxes, including income taxes (at whatever level of consolidation might ultimately be agreed upon), rather than the issue of local vs state control affecting the decisions about what kind of tax to impose. |
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