Property Tax bill arrived!!!!!!

[Cheri in NY]

It has gone up $300 from last year....a notice in the envelope says that the reason is there are so many on Medicaid in our county and New York is the highest Medicaid state in the nation. What do you all make of this?

[Critter183]

Originally Posted by Cheri in NY

It has gone up $300 from last year....a notice in the envelope says that the reason is there are so many on Medicaid in our county and New York is the highest Medicaid state in the nation. What do you all make of this?

I call it socialism. Not quite full blown communism yet, but more like national socialism, or fascism.

[SteveD(TX)]

What would you expect from a state that would elect Hillary to Congress? Lower taxes?

[uncle Will in In.]

When we think we own our property we are hit with the yearly rent on it. How naive we are.

[diane greene]

The Federal Gov't has drastically cut state aid - so local taxes go up. Washington is robbing from Peter to pay Paul. If my tax money goes to help some little old lady pay for her medication I have no problem with it - if my tax money goes to blow up old women in Iraq I get cranky. Taxes should be away to invest in and better our country, not take over oil rich foreign nations.
Five years ago we had a good surplus - today it is gone along with billions in IOU's. I hope you feel you getting your money's worth by funding Bush's War.

[jack_c-ville]

I agree entirely, except to say that property taxes are a fundamentally flawed point of taxation. I would rather pay the same amount of money added onto my income tax than pay property taxes. Taxes should only be levied when money changes hands. That way it can be reasonably certain that at least there is some actual money to collect. But property taxes are levied regardless of whether there is money present to pay them with. We have traditionally used a progressive tax system at the federal level that prevents the poor from being completely crushed by taxes yet still keeps the government running. Why there can't be similar logic at the state and local level is beyond me.

If we must tax (and I suppose we must), then let's tax partly on the basis of ability to pay. Owning a piece of land in no way means that someone has the money to pay the taxes on it every year.

-Jack

Originally Posted by diane greene

The Federal Gov't has drastically cut state aid - so local taxes go up. Washington is robbing from Peter to pay Paul. If my tax money goes to help some little old lady pay for her medication I have no problem with it - if my tax money goes to blow up old women in Iraq I get cranky. Taxes should be away to invest in and better our country, not take over oil rich foreign nations.
Five years ago we had a good surplus - today it is gone along with billions in IOU's. I hope you feel you getting your money's worth by funding Bush's War.

[tyusclan]

Originally Posted by diane greene

The Federal Gov't has drastically cut state aid - so local taxes go up. Washington is robbing from Peter to pay Paul. If my tax money goes to help some little old lady pay for her medication I have no problem with it - if my tax money goes to blow up old women in Iraq I get cranky. Taxes should be away to invest in and better our country, not take over oil rich foreign nations.
Five years ago we had a good surplus - today it is gone along with billions in IOU's. I hope you feel you getting your money's worth by funding Bush's War.

Sorry, but I disagree. The "surplus" we supposedly had was due to creative accounting and an overvalued stock market because of the cooked books of so many large corporations.

[Hoop]

Property taxes do NOT fund medicaid. The bulk of your property taxes are spend on public education and police/fire protection.

[Irish Pixie]

My property tax bill came the other day too. Medicaid IS funded by property taxes in NYS. My payment for Medicaid alone is $402.67 on 108.63 acres of vacant land (mostly timbered hill, only 45 acres is open). Total property and school on the 108.63 acres is $1931.66. That doesn't count the taxes on the house, barn, and 5 acres that are covered by a mortgage and the taxes paid out of escrow. Plus they raised the ---- assessment $3243.00.

Arrgghh. I love NY but I'm soon not going to be able to afford it.

Stacy

[reluctantpatriot]

In my Missouri county roughly 80% of our property taxes goes to the public school district. The rest pays for the nursing home district, county library, rural fire department and ambulance. We get better use out of the 20% than the bulk going to the public school district. Granted, that is my opinion.

I do agree that the taxes at the county and local levels should be based on ability to pay rather than property you have. Perhaps all you have to your name is that land because you spent almost all your earnings to buy it for your investment in a place to live and a place to make your life.

In my county, and perhaps the whole state, we tax satillite dishes by size, riding lawnmowers by horspower, golf carts, go carts, emus, ostriches, goats, sheep, horses, cows, pigs, hay bales, milo, soybeans, corn, and ATVs, amoung other things.

I am trying to figure out why we tax the dishes because they exist, but not broadcast TV antennas. Why we tax riding lawnmowers, but not push mowers and weedwackers. Not that I want to encourage that.... :no:

Anyway...I agree that we need to reform how we tax, but perhaps we need to be more frugal with the tax moneys begin with.

[mtman]

80 acres and a small house is $104 a year cant beat that new york is a nice place to visit but....... gotta love arkansas

[flatlander53]

The folks posting from NYS, are correct about taxing property owners to fund medicaid. My recent tax bill states that 40% of the total county tax goes to medicaid (that's about $500 in my case). This is a recent change where they now have to disclose the medicaid amount in the tax bill. In the past it was buried in the county tax figure. I have 61 acres (41 wooded, 20 fields), no house and my property and school taxes are $4,212 per year........a major expense for one considering builing a homestead....at least its paid for.

[Critter183]

I get all heated up when it comes to talking taxes.

If you're going to have a government, you are going to have to pay for it. Generally, that is done through taxation.

When this country was founded, I think they understood the evil of having unrestrained government, and therefore unrestrained taxation. They built into this government strict limits of what government can and cannot do, and they also provided for the federal government to be mostly funded by import tarrifs and duties.

It was a very good system. I say was, because most Americans know nothing about how it was set up, and how it is supposed to be, and therefore the restrictions on government mean nothing. The result is out of control government and spending, and out of control taxation.

There is not one thing that we do on any given day that isn't taxed in some way. You cannot even claim to breath tax free air because I am sure there is a clean air tax somewhere.

When I see someone say that they don't mind their tax money going to buy this persons that, or that persons this, but they don't like it going to do that, it kills me. It's not supposed to be doing any of it. If we allow our elected SERVANTS to do one thing that they shouldn't, we are allowing them to do anything they want to do and shouldn't.

With 200 million plus people here, there are 200 million plus things they wouldn't mind their taxes being spent on, and it does get spent on those 200 million plus things.

It's really time to say no to everything that is not explicitly allowed by the US and the state constitutions.

But that won't happen, because too many people just don't care. So I know what I do. I do anything and everything I can to get out and stay out of their illegal system.

I am a sovereign. No one has more right to my time, my energy or my life than I do. Therefore no one has the right to take from me the product of that time, energy or life, without my permission.

I love this little piece: http://www.lpnh.org/liberty1.htm

It sums up my feeling rather nicely and I go look at it from time to time to remind myself of what I am trying to be.

[FrankTheTank]

115K house in somewhat ghetto neighborhood...good schools...over $3000/year....welcome to wisconsin...

You really have to understand that when the government says "no new taxes" they just mean they are going to devalue your currency(less purchasing power), raise fees on everything(even hunting/fishing), give you less when you retire(thats next up--social security)...a person can go on and on...

This country is changing, slowly, but its changing...

[Cindy in PA]

We are up $400 between school tax and county this year. It will come to $3600 for a 1500 sq. ft ranch and 2 acres. People continue to sell of parcels of farmland, so I know it will never end. More kids mean more school taxes. The county taxes went up 33.75% this year. On top of that we have 6% sales tax and 3.07% state tax. Add overcrowded roads and you have a lesser quality of life. Seems everyone is in the same boat.

[caballoviejo]

Originally Posted by Dave

Have your property taxes been lowered?




Diane hit the nail on the head. This kind of story is going to be repeated everywhere.

I've always asked anyone who touts the merits of the Bush tax cuts how much they've actually saved from them. NOBODY has been able to give me an answer yet. You'd think if someone is going to rally around an idea, they'd have a notion of how it affects them. Goes to show how much people really pay attention.

I've further asked them how much their other taxes, which there are many, have gone up since the "tax cuts". I've yet to hear anyone say they've gone down.

The Bush tax cuts have saved me substantial money and I've posted that statement before on this forum. Savings for my family will be over $5,000 per year in 2005 from a combination of increased tax credits and reduced tax rates. State taxes, in the meantime, have been flat with local property taxes increasing at the rate of inflation. Of, course, my state is not a major welfare state with big social program spending like New York and California.

[SteveD(TX)]

Originally Posted by Dave

Have your property taxes been lowered?

Uh, yes as a matter of fact. We just paid them, and they went down about $270 from last year. Right now, there is a bill being sponsored by a local state representative that should lower them another 20% or so.

[BobBoyce]

Originally Posted by Dave

Have your property taxes been lowered?

Diane hit the nail on the head. This kind of story is going to be repeated everywhere.

I've always asked anyone who touts the merits of the Bush tax cuts how much they've actually saved from them. NOBODY has been able to give me an answer yet. You'd think if someone is going to rally around an idea, they'd have a notion of how it affects them. Goes to show how much people really pay attention.

I've further asked them how much their other taxes, which there are many, have gone up since the "tax cuts". I've yet to hear anyone say they've gone down.

Tax cuts? Like you said, what tax cuts? Our income level was not high enough to qualify for any of those "tax credits" or "rebates" that Bush was supposed to provide. Maybe those with higher income brackets benefitted, I wouldn't know because I never saw any of that overlypublicized tax relief. As far as I can tell, Bush has given more tax relief for the wealthy, and shifted more of the tax burden onto those that are less able to pay.

When it comes to tangible personal property taxes, I feel it is totally wrong to have to pay taxes to buy something, then pay taxes on that same item over and over every year.

I maintain main residency and keep my vehicles registered in another state that does not have that, just so I do not have to participate in that fiasco.

I claim part year residency status in the state that does. They don't charge the tangible personal property taxes on vehicles titled and registered out of state, even if you keep them in state. We do have to pay it on our home since they classify singlewides as personal property, but there is no avoiding that unless we build a site built home (classified as real property then) and get rid of the singlewide.

When we bought this property, we were unaware that the state tangible personal property tax included personal property not used for business. In the state we moved from, only personal property used for business was covered by the tangible personal property tax.

At our old place in a small town in the other state, we keep the lease active and maintain a phone line there in our name. My sister lives there now and pays the bills, so it's not costing us anything to maintain, and we spend one to two days a month there to maintain our residency status. It's only an hour or so drive each way so it's not too bad.

My sister gets to spend that day or two in the country at our place every month, and we get to spend that day or two in town to do our monthly shopping. We have it timed around my sisters work schedule, and it's worked out really well for us for almost 5 years.

We were challenged last year on the legality of this arrangement. This state wanted us to retitle and register our vehicles so they could tax us on them. Thank goodness I had done my research first. As long as we spend at least one day a month at our old residence, we get to keep our main residency status in the other state, and keep our vehicles titled and registered there. We were able to fend off that attack with nothing more than a visit to the courthouse with the appropriate documents and receipts, ect. We keep gas purchase receipts, shopping receipts, ect to prove the dates and times spent over there.

Bob

[Lrose]

Originally Posted by Cindy in PA

We are up $400 between school tax and county this year. It will come to $3600 for a 1500 sq. ft ranch and 2 acres. People continue to sell of parcels of farmland, so I know it will never end. More kids mean more school taxes. The county taxes went up 33.75% this year. On top of that we have 6% sales tax and 3.07% state tax. Add overcrowded roads and you have a lesser quality of life. Seems everyone is in the same boat.

I HAVE BEEN READING HOW HIGH PROPERTY TAXES ARE IN VARIOUS STATES AND AM AMAZED!! WE HAVE TEN ACRES OF WHICH SEVEN IS EXEMPT FROM PROPERTY TAX BECAUSE IT IS BEING FARMED. WE ARE TAXED ON THE HOUSE, BARN AND THREE ACRES . THE ASSESSMENT ON THE HOUSE WAS DROPPED BY 75% BECAUSE IT IS 175 YEARS OLD.OUR TAXES LAST YEAR WERE 390. AND WE GOT A DISCOUNT OF ANOTHER 150. BECAUSE OUR INCOME WAS UNDER 13,000. OUR WOODLOT IS NOT TAXED AS LONG AS WE ARE USING IT FOR FIREWOOD. A FRIEND OF OURS HAS A HOUSE WORTH 125,000. AND THEIR TAXES ARE 1900. A YEAR. PROPERTY TAXES PAY FOR MUNICIPAL SERVICES LIKE SECONDARY ROAD REPAIR, SNOW REMOVAL,SCHOOLS AND VOLUNTARY FIRE DEPARTMENTS. OUR MEDICAL IS PAID BY A 15% SALES TAX ON ALL GOODS AND SERVICES. THERE IS A SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS AND THE WAIT SOMETIMES IS LONG TO SEE ONE. BUT EMERGENCY CASES ARE PUSHED THROUGH. NOVA SCOTIA DOESN'T HAVE A PERFECT TAX SYSTEM BUT I CAN THINK OF ALOT WORSE.! I TOO LOVE FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. MY FAVOURITE SAYING FOUND ON THE INTERNET IS " OWE NO ONE ANYTHING; SO NO ONE OWNS YOU!" HAVE A NICE DAY LINDA

[reluctantpatriot]

Missouri businesses are double taxed on their equipment. They pay sales tax for their tools, cash registers, computers, office or dining area furniture, and so forth, then they get taxed on having those items in their establishment. I am trying to see the logic of taxing these things as being property.

I might understand a structure or land or a business vehicle, but taxing fixtures makes zero sense to me. If you can have a computer in your home and not have it taxed (for now), why tax a business because of having computers? This is just one example of something that makes little sense to me. It serves as a disincentive to have a business or upgrade equipment because the more you improve your business, the more you are taxed.

It seems more logical to work out of your home and stay off the taxing radar as much as possible.

Then again, as it has been said, we originally ran the government on excise taxes and inport duties. If we taxed the rhetoric of politicians like we tax the regular populace, we could either totally fund the government with their own hot air or actually reduce costs because the bureaucrats wouldn't have the desire to get themselves taxed. We would win either way.