blog about Austin gentrification (Spring, Center: 2014, casino, property tax)

[MrCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by cBach

To be honest, this lady is what was bad with the old Austin. All the negatives of slacker but none of the positives. At least the old time slackers were apathetic and they moved onto greener pastures without a fuss.

If you can rephrase that to fit on a bumper sticker, I'd buy one!

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by MrCurmudgeon

Individual tax breaks -- e.g., the deductibility of mortgage interest and property taxes, as well as capital gains exemptions on the sale of a primary residence -- have a lot more to do with the cost of housing than any corporate tax breaks.

But that doesn't fit the pseudo-socialist narrative, does it?

The deductiblity of mortgage interest and property taxes has very little impact on making housing affordable, as its mostly people in higher income brackets that can come up with enough deductions to be able to itemize. Very few people in lower income brackets can do that.

Higher Income Taxpayers Are Most Likely to Claim Itemized Deductions | Tax Foundation

The percentage of tax filers who itemize increases as we move up the income scale. Only about half of taxpayers earning between $50,000 and $75,000 claim itemized deductions, but nearly 100 percent of taxpayers earning above $200,000 itemize.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by creepy

Here is a good blog about the gentrification of Austin.

Austin Housing Sucks

It's not a "good" blog and it's not about gentrification as much as it is about the writer's displeasure with her own life. I actually found it poorly written and petulant. Then I read part two, which was worse, especially the panhandling/begging at the end .

She writes like a typical "I'm a victim, I have a beef. Here, let me wretch on you and pepper it with sarcasm" voice.

That said, I share the dismay of those who wonder what happened to the Austin of yore. So she's someone I could probably share a rant with. I guess we all just need to break out our copies of "Who Moved My Cheese".

Steve

[ognend]

I don't understand the beef. Someone who has had their work published in Playboy and National Geographic, New York Times and Smithsonian, someone who has sold so many books, they should have no problems affording Austin. It is always funny when the elite defends the poor....

[cBach]

Useless drivel is all the article is.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Whether you 'collectivize' it out to scale of thousands of homes makes no difference. How you want to draw your budget lines makes no difference because we're not making a budget: we're talking about why this lady's house is worth a small fortune. It's not worth a small fortune because of the city budget. It's worth a small fortune because demand has raised property values. The budget, and the entirety of your post, has got nothing to do with this subject.

You're the one who brought that subject in, talking about all of Austin's (our) property taxes.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

You can't have 130+ people moving to one town every day for years and not have demand go through the roof. That is the biggest contribution to our property tax bills and it isn't the county's fault or the city's fault or rich people's fault.

All of our property taxes (collectively) are purely budget driven and have nothing to do with all the people moving here. That's just using them as a boogieman.

Austin property taxes are high because of spending. It's the new >$100M library. It's the $600M in AISD bonds for a shrinking school district that is sitting on valuable land it's not fully utilizing. It's the Travis County budget, which somehow has outpaced city budget growth despite the shrinking amount of unincorporated land.

[Aquitaine]

talking about all of Austin's (our) property taxes.

...which is what the blog is about.

All of our property taxes (collectively) are purely budget driven and have nothing to do with all the people moving here.

So when I want to lower my property taxes, I go and protest libraries and school districts?

The only sense in which what you're saying isn't pseudo-academic blather is tax rates. I am talking about appraisals. Yes, if half of Austin packed up and moved, and they had to meet the budget, they could double our tax rates and our appraisals wouldn't mean much.

Outside of graduate humanities courses where this kind of thing is the bible, it's got nothing to do with reality. I'm not interested in hypothetical constructs relying on events that have never happened and will never happen that justify your politics. Tax rates don't change much and while it is of course true that the city and county could do whatever the heck they wanted with the taxation system to meet their budget, the mechanism that they've got relies on the value of my house, of the blogger's house, and of everybody else's house, and that value is not determined by the city budget even if the target revenue pool is.

"A tax system" is purely budget driven. "This tax system" might use the budget as a big target sign but all of the moving parts are plugged into real estate in a way that is patently obvious.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

I'm not interested in hypothetical constructs relying on events that have never happened and will never happen that justify your politics.

Who's talking hypotheticals. I'm talking what's actually happening now.

The hundred or so people moving here every day aren't increasing Austin's taxation. It's the spending.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Tax rates don't change much

They change every year

If they're not changing "much" that's a function of total property values not changing "much" and spending massively increasing.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

and while it is of course true that the city and county could do whatever the heck they wanted with the taxation system to meet their budget, the mechanism that they've got relies on the value of my house, of the blogger's house, and of everybody else's house, and that value is not determined by the city budget even if the target revenue pool is.

And that value (the value of everybody's house) is the denominator, not the numerator. It doesn't affect the total amount the City (or other taxing entities) are spending.

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

"A tax system" is purely budget driven. "This tax system" might use the budget as a big target sign but all of the moving parts are plugged into real estate in a way that is patently obvious.

Come on. Do the math.

If everybody's values went up 10% every year, for ever and ever, but spending stayed the same, the tax rate would drop, every year.

The fact that it doesn't means that the City/County/Etc. see this big opportunity to raise taxes and spending.

[ATX Wahine]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

Then I read part two, which was worse, especially the panhandling/begging at the end .

Curiosity got the best of me and I read P2. Ugh. Quite honestly some of the worst writing I've seen. Blog on gentrification? Mmm right ... more like blog on her dramatic failures in life, with a postscript about a house she once lived in.

[Aquitaine]

Who's talking hypotheticals. I'm talking what's actually happening now.

You're talking about an academic description of the budgetary process that nobody disagrees with, which is that the city can spend as much or as little as it wants regardless of property values. This is a tautology with no impact except on the paper version of the world.

It ought to be a tautology as well that, because property taxation is the primary source of revenue for the government 'round these parts, there is consequently a connection between property values and the budget, just as there is a connection between tax rates and the budget. Doesn't matter which is the numerator or the denominator; one is much more fungible than the other. "Tax rates change every year" is also only true in an academic sense: they remain roughly the same or squeak higher. Nobody's 'tax rates' have gone up by 25% in two years. The whole advantage of this system to the government is that they don't have to 'raise taxes' while property values are going up: they just sit back and appraise!