Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
I want to clarify that there seems to be a misunderstanding in our discussion:
I and IIC aren’t complaining about property taxes being high
We are complaining about them being unbelievably unstable. There is something seriously wrong when your tax bill doubles (or more) in one year.
Stability is one of the necessary prerequisites to encourage investment. When you don’t have stability, investors don’t know what assumptions to make. How do you budget out your future balance sheet to prepare for the future? How much do you set aside for a roof repair (or just skip it altogether) knowing full well that the city can just drop a shitbomb tax bill on you next year for no good reason?
This is what is drawing so much criticism and ire from so many. There has to be stability. Fine, let the tax bills go up, but do it incrementally like everything else.
Also, property taxes should be based on ability to pay, like an income tax. If my home’s value doubled that doesn’t mean that I suddenly have double the income, thus my bill should be doubled. It’s a stupid way to tax the citizenry. Again, I prefer California’s approach and I would accept a higher income tax in return for more sanity with property taxation.
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Isn't the instability caused by systematic historic underassesment of properties compared to fair market prices though? This is what Kaegi is supposedly trying to fix, but obviously it sucks for people who were getting a good deal before (at the cost of other people having to pay more than their fair share). Obviously if your place is assessed much higher than a fair market value, then that's a problem (and is what the appeals process is supposed to address, rather than it being a means for corrupt pols to pad their pockets).
My condo's tax assessment is within 5% of what I paid for it so I doubt it's possible for my property taxes to double randomly, though I suppose if I had tried to find a place that was significantly underassesed it could (but I shouldn't be that surprised, in that case).