Watch your property taxes!!!!!!
 

Just an FYI to all those out there, especialy in Kansas. I recently got my new mortage payment book, and was dumbfounded when the new payment was $250 more a month.:flame: After a few phone calls I was told it was due to an escrow shortage. Did some more checking and found out it was due to my property taxes. The state of Kansas decided to reclassify my property w/o my knowledge, and raised my taxes 47%. I talked to a few people and discovered I am not alone, after one day I discovered three more people I know who it happened to in the past six months, supposedly due to trying to raise money due to state budget shortfalls. I now get the "pleasure" of getting them to change it back.

What were the before and after classifications Curtiss? Sounds like this is happening all over.

I'm not seeing any benefit at all to real property being devalued in Las Vegas. I just reviewed the assessment & tax history history for my house and it doesn't seem to matter. The assessed value has gone from $150K to $30K over the past 3 years, yet the tax bill hasn't changed by one cent. I'm wondering what's up with that.

If the tax bill is independent of the property value, what's the point in assessing? Why don't they just tell us that they need that much to operate and leave it at that.

Mine have gone up 76% in 2 years and the classification has remained the same. It's our No New Taxes fraud in the Governor's office. He's running for national office so remember his name. Tim Pawlenty!

Before they were Rural ag, now they are Rural Residence. I have filed a schedule F with my taxes for the past 3 years, apparently that isn't enough for my land to stay classified as ag. From what I understand I have to file an appeal. Then over the next few months I will have to make repeated appearances and show items like reciepts for hay, and grain. I will also end up needing to bring in sales receipts and pictures of livestock, but not horses. If you bring in pictures of horses that adds another hearing on wether or not they are pets, if they are found to be pets, you cannot classify the land they are on as ag.

Nevada, chances are everyone's "Assessed Property Value" has decreased over the past few years. But, the county gov't still needs a certain amount of income to operate. So what the County does when assessed values decrease is simply increase the mill rate, consequently you end up paying the same property tax and the County's annual income stays about the same.

Sure stays stable though. $149.40 every 3 months, to the penny. They really should move it up or down a dime once in a while to make it look like they're doing something. If not, they might wake-up one day and realize that we don't need an assessor.

Our mortgage payments did the same thing..After calling the company that holds it to question the change we were informed that it was the same reason, escrow shortage because of increased property taxes....but to call our assessors office and question this they have told us it was the exact same amount for the past several years. There is definitely something rotten in the whole process.

You're complaining about $600/year!?!?! Never, move to Minnesota!

ours just keep going down, wich is and isnt a good thing. the money owed vs the taxable value is about 60,000 difference in the red so if we wanted to sell and git it would be a negative. as long as we want to stay it isnt a bad thing.

hows a homestead exemption play in to all this curtis, Kansas - No monetary limitation - area limitations of 1 acre urban land or 160 acres rural land Kansas Constitution, Article 15 § 9 and Kansas Statutes, Annotated, § 60-2301

seems that your property used for your living quarters and enclosed land surrounding your house should be.

Here's an unfortunate truth for you: Unless you're very well to do, you're not going to be able to hold onto your property in the not too distant future. Couple of things at work here, most prevalent is that ya don't have to own property to vote and most voters don't own property.

Whose gonna pay for all them welfare programs? Federals passin' it down to the states and the states are passin' it down to the local gov'ments'.

That way when values go back up they get more $$$$$$.

It varies depending on locale but some places require that you make the majority of your income on the farm, $2,000/yr profit ect, ect. Just find out what your requirements are and hope you still qualify. Chances are you probably don't qualify anymore due to a recent change or they just got around to changing it from an old full fledged farm on your property. Good luck, Red tape is a wonderful thing.

I watch my property taxes like a hawk. I don't want to make my place look too nice otherwise I'll be taxed right out of it. I did manage knock down the assessment by over half. Had I not I would be paying almost a thousand dollars a year in taxes on a place I bought for 30,000.

I've thought about this myself. In Wisconsin schools are funded by property taxes. If a whole bunch of renters live in a run down place that has low property taxes and send a bunch of kids to school in effect their kid's educations are being subsidized by property owners. There are just way too many instances of people getting back more than they are putting in. A more fair system would be to have only people of school aged children pay in for public schools or have everyone who went to a public school have to pay a set amount of money for so many years after they graduate.

Retirement liabilities for public sector employees (like teachers) are going to have to go down to a sustainable level. Private companies have been cutting retirement benefits for decades, the government will have to do the same.

The only thing I think property taxes should pay for is infrastructure and services that are used by all such as fire protection and police.

I couldn't agree more. Property taxes are tied into schools here as well. It ticks me off because I am paying thousands every year and I don't have kids. As much as I have paid towards property taxes, I could have used that money to send a child to private school. It is a total waste and rip off.

really I would not mind if the kids learned something and where able to add to the tax base. seems that is not the case most of the time. but that is the logic used to justify it wether or not it holds water is something else.

I just got my new assessment today in the mail. Mine went down 50K. Ours is supposed to be based on 100% of market value and uses market data to make the assessment.

::sigh:: It is now back to what I paid to build it...minus the 100K I added over the last few years in upgrades. But that's okay with me really. I'm not upside down or underwater or whatever we're calling it today.

I think we just have to keep trying to look at the bright side of things. Well, as long as we can, right?

You're correct Nevada, you're assessment doesn't affect the final tax bill, because the assessment only determines how much tax you pay RELATIVE to everyone else. The municipality still needs the same amount of money, even though values have fallen, so they simply devalue everyone by about the same percentage, and jack up the mill-rate.

You must go to General Chat and read the thread titled (it's a poll) is education a right or a privilege? You will soon see that there will not be an end to higher and higher taxes.
Amy time it's couched "for the children" you must agree or you will be severely chastised for being an elitist who doesn't want to "help" the poor children. Gird your loins (or whatever you have to gird) for the future of wealth redistibution. Soon there will not be "personal" property - personal property means there are certain freedoms and responsibilities - those are fast becoming a thing of the past - think national health care.

I got a $100/mo rise and found out they were paying MY NEIGHBOR's tax bill as well as my own. After they quit doing that I only went up $20/mo.

Lol. Oh, I am very familiar with that thread. I am not making friends with the liberal types in that room.

Curtis, I'm assuming you don't get a property tax bill directly, right? If you did, you'd'a probably gotten the notice of the increase in valuation, and a protest letter to protest the raise, to be filed in "X" days, usually 30 to 45.

I own no mortgage... felt it was never wise to live independent of the system yet be a chattel slave TO the system.... so I get my tax bills directly. I've protested them formally twice, first time lowering them by 2/3rds, second time, I walked away, once I found out everyone's rate had went up (and really didn't want the appraiser coming out and seeing all the stuff not on his rolls).

Texas property taxes dropped about half a few years ago, from a max of 1.65 mil to ~ 65... Paid school taxes today on 167 acres, home, and minerals... 240 bucks... don't know how much county's bill will be.

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. :p
People love their services... when valuations fall, the rate goes up, to keep the lights on.

Personally, I only care if the library, courthouse, and sheriff's office is staffed. Drop the schools too. If someone wants educated kids, educate them theirselves, or pay for each kid thats enrolled in the public schools. They're pretty much a joke (babysitting service) anyway. What am I doing up on a soapbox...

4yrs ago mine were 69.00...last year 117.50.

Last year I owe $28 and some few cents on 27 acres this year I am up to $42 and some few cents. No improvements this year. That is almost 50%.

Ditto! That is the EXACT same thing they told us.
Our payments were $465 and we have always paid $500 just to knock it down.
Now it has gone up $30. arrrgghhh.

Unfortunately this is the 2nd jump up in ours...almost $100 with the last one.:grit:

or Texas, I'm just under $4k a year on mine and I don't live in a McMansion

That anyone could just raise property taxes without notice is obscene. How nice of them to tell the mortgage people at least (sarcastic.)

The same thing on our 40ac. in Kansas. Our valuation even went down a smidge.

But our annual tax last year was $18.something.
This year it was $20.79 for the year! :flame:



(Ok, so I don't actually have a problem paying $20 a year in property taxes. I just didn't want to be left out of the gripe session. ;) )

there is one good thing about michigan. If your income is low enough, the state will reimburse you for a percentage of your property taxes.

I dotn know if I agree with it or not, but one theory is that an educated population, meaning kids who have gradutated from highschool, will bennefit the community and society much more than an uneducated population. According to the theory, you are benefitting from the local schools that you are paying for with your property taxes because the educated population are less likely to need wlefare.

a good reason to switch to consumption based taxes instead of property and income taxes.

i like that

Well sounds like a good reason to cut off welfare also.

The problem of that is the rich would pay less taxes. They can only spend so much of their money and the rest they stash wouldn't be taxed which would equal a tax increase on the rest of us.(the top 5% income earners pay 30% of taxes)

A flat rate income tax with no "deductions"(loopholes) would be the best if anything. It would be a flat 7% Federal Income Tax to equal the amount of income tax the IRS collects.

Ideally if we massively cut spending it could be paid for with some consumption tax and tariffs with no income or property taxes but that would never happen.

We have had the state of Vermont do this to us twice. We have lived here full time for 20 years. Without any warning or reason they changed our home from Residential to Non-Residential even though I file the homestead form every year. I had to fight them tooth and nail to get it fixed each time.

On top of that the last three times they've done our assessment they've gotten things repeatedly wrong on each assessment, adding stuff we don't have, over sizing us, etc.

This is a money grubbing way the state is trying to get more taxes. There are a lot of people who won't put in the fight or notice so the state steam rollers over the tax payers. The government creates hoops and hurdles to make things more difficult and trip people up.

Government greed. It ----es me off that I have to waste time on this.

As to the educational benefit, it's a waste of money. We are definitely not getting our money's worth. They're overpaying the teachers and buying overly fancy stuff they don't need. They spend $16,000 a year per student and produce graduates with poor comprehension and skills - just look at the test scores and people being spit out by the public "educational" system. We homeschool our three kids for less than $1,000 a year put together plus our 'spare' time. Our kids are far more polite, responsible and knowledgeable than those from public school. They're 'grades' ahead and do real things with their knowledge.

Government - Bah humbug. (Yes, there are some times when government does good things. Too bad it isn't more often.)

I contacted the county today. It was definatly a reclassification issue. I have made an appointment to go in and meet to fix the issue. I am told at this point all I have to do is bring in my schedule F and it will be changed back. The first half has already been paid, and I can't change anything monetarly until the next payment is due in May. It almost seems strange how percentages can make the increase change. If it had been $40 to $60 I wouldn't have a problem, but from $2014 to $2987, I will take the time to fix it. Don't get me started on the whole school issue. DW is a teacher, and I could tell some stories about the system.

My school district spends a lot of money on stuff they don't need, mainly on the huge monster sports programs. The school has a friggin indoor track, four gyms, swimming pool, plus three baseball diamonds, two foot ball fields, and another outdoor track. This is for a school of 600-700 students total (K-12). The indoor track/gym combo was over 4 million dollars. In Wisconsin at least there is way way too much money being spent on sports. I think all the focus on sports is taking away from the real reason for school, to learn. It really gets on my nerves knowing that a large part of the property taxes I pay in don't go for anything that has to do with education.

As another Vermonter, I fully agree! I pay $350 in town property tax and about $2500 in the "State School Property Tax". My property is .75 of an acre and even though I live on an island, I do not have lake front perperty. My town provides very little in services, just a town Hall with a Town Clerk (to take your money) and a town constable who does nothing and gets paid around $300 a year. We do how ever have a school for pre-K through 6 and send out the others to another town. We have only about 450 year-round residents and alot of summer homes for the flat-landers. Our local school only has 31 kids this year with another 35 or so going out of town to jr high and high school. The State of Vermont sucks a lot more money out of my town for education than they give us back. Much of the money collected form our town is sent down state. I have never had children yet my husband and I are not only paying for the kids in our town, we are paying for kids in towns that are 100+ miles away. I fume :stars: and sputter every year when we get our bill!

6.68 Acres, 1980 remodeled double-wide (interior) w/a new 30 yr peaked comp roof back in 2005, 16 X 16 code-attached office, shop building, 2-car carport, and mostly 2nd growth forest.

2006 Taxes = $2,000/year

We bought it in 2007, cleared 1/2 acre of trees, and added a garden cabin (not seen by assessor), but otherwise didn't paint or improve the exterior of any of the buildings.

2010 Taxes = $2,518/year:flame:

This equates to a 26% increase, although that isn't as bad of a % as some of you have experienced, the taxes are much higher here than in most other parts of the Country. Yes, the assessed value did drop, too.

We plan to remodel the interior a bit more, will look exactly like a stick built home inside. The outside, we will do little with. Otherwise, pay out the nose in more taxes!

Our elementary school was closed last year, due to attendance dropping 20 minutes away. They are now busing all the children to schools that needed higher attendance. The locals were fuming:flame: That school property sits vacant and hasn't been sold, yet.

We live in a small town, but do have a Fire Station and Post Office. With the exception of a single school, we do get all the other services.

Our property taxes in this state don't pay for the schools and we get very few services for the taxes paid. However, in case nobody has noticed, the whole country is going broke including municipalities. Most cities, counties and states biggest source of income is in taxes so since they are broke, they will be raising taxes, cutting back services and increasing fees whenever and where ever they can. Pretty soon the only defense against these taxes and fees will be because we are broke and don't own anything anymore. We are their basic source of income so where are they going to get the money if they don't take it from us?

It would be interesting if only those who owned property could vote. That would certainly change the makeup of the US political process.