[JayCT]

Originally Posted by RunD1987

30% property tax is low in this State. I really hope the Governor repeals the car tax property cap. Does nothing for CT. Only places it affects is cities like Bridgeport and Waterbury. Sure lowers car taxes, but raises property taxes. Next year soneone in Waterbury owning a $100K house will pay close to $6500 in taxes. Double that with a $200K house that's $13,000 in taxes!!!

You keep talking about percent (%). I believe you really mean the mill rate which is different. A mill is $1 on each $1,000 in value so a property that has a $100,000 assessment in a city with a 30 mill tax rate would pay $3,000 in taxes. A car assessed at $10,000 would be taxed at $300.

And you should note that those car taxes are supposed to go to maintaining the roads in the town. Without those funds there will be less money to do that. Jay

[BPt111]

Originally Posted by JayCT

You keep talking about percent (%). I believe you really mean the mill rate which is different. A mill is $1 on each $1,000 in value so a property that has a $100,000 assessment in a city with a 30 mill tax rate would pay $3,000 in taxes. A car assessed at $10,000 would be taxed at $300.

And you should note that those car taxes are supposed to go to maintaining the roads in the town. Without those funds there will be less money to do that. Jay

"And you should note that those car taxes are supposed to go to maintaining the roads in the town."

Then why 25-40% of Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford roads are full of potholes or in rough shape

http://www.odometer.com/lifestyle/46...-roads/#page=1

[Sigequinox]

Originally Posted by BPt111

"And you should note that those car taxes are supposed to go to maintaining the roads in the town."

Then why 40% of Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford roads are full of potholes or in rough shape

And how is it that most of the country has better roads with much smaller vehicle tax bill or without such a tax at all?

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by BPt111

"And you should note that those car taxes are supposed to go to maintaining the roads in the town."

Then why 25-40% of Bridgeport, Waterbury, Hartford roads are full of potholes or in rough shape

20 Cities with the WORST Roads - Odometer.com

Ask those towns. They determine how the money is spent. Jay

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by Sigequinox

And how is it that most of the country has better roads with much smaller vehicle tax bill or without such a tax at all?

I recently asked a friend of a friend who retired to AL a similar question. He was town public works and state DOT in CT. He mentioned the salt, pressure from snow plows, the hot/cold fluctuation, and most importantly, amount of rocks we have in our soil makes it extremely difficult for road crews to keep up with the roads in the northeast. Down south, where he now works part time as their version of public works, he said they have significantly less issues. He also mentioned manpower is often very limited in CT.

While I'm with you that taxes here are insane, there are far more factors that screw up our roads. And having traveled quote a bit, I don't think our roadways are all that bad considering how much works against us.

[GoHuskies]

Originally Posted by Sigequinox

And how is it that most of the country has better roads with much smaller vehicle tax bill or without such a tax at all?

Those cities see more traffic and have more roads to care for than a smaller town.

[UconnHusky1]

Originally Posted by RunD1987

Most property taxes in the State are 35% or below. Car cap is only capping it at 32%. Only places where mill rates are high are big cities like New Haven, Bridgeport, Waterbury, and so forth. Then there are some places near these large areas of CT that have a high mill rate, but don't go above 45%. All it does is jack up the property taxes to offset the car cap. So unless you rent doesn't effect you much. However, if you own it can greatly effect you. Think the projected mill rate I Waterbury next year is between 60% to 62%.

They should go back to county taxes. Allocate money from the county to cities/towns in the county based off population numbers for previous year. County tax money covers everything, but schools. Cities/towns can implement a school tax capped at 10% to cover funding of schools in their town/city.

I thought the state would reimburse the towns/cities that have mill rates above the capped car tax mill rates, thus the towns/cities wouldn't increase taxes to offset the difference.

[HeadedWest]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Not surprising that according to this article Connecticut residents pay the second highest property taxes in the country. What I thought was interesting is that the article attributes No. 1's (New York) high taxes to the high priced real estate in Manhattan. IF Manhattan skews the New York State taxes higher, wouldn't the same be true for Connecticut towns like Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan or any of the number of other very affluent towns with very large and expensive homes in the state. It would be interesting to know what the house type is for the average property taxes paid in each state. I would guess some state have smaller homes while others have larger ones. Might place the survey they did into perspective. Jay

Well, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties are in the mix, too. They are comparable to Fairfield county in luxury housing and are taxed at a higher rate than Connecticut on otherwise comparable houses.

But it's hard to make a fair comparison, because of the differences in real estate from place to place.

Side note: when I was digging through my old tax returns for another purpose, I noticed my CT property taxes had changed a lot over time, so I dug out all the numbers. I moved into that house in 1998 and out in 2013. In that 15 year stretch, my property taxes almost exactly doubled. I think a good fraction of this went to support the school system that loved to build more buildings which, it turns out, will not be needed because the school population is dropping.

[Henry10]

Transportation Fund is under two major pressures. First, politicians can't help themselves but raid it when General Fund is in the red. And there is more.

Hence the idea of the Lockbox. Malloy himself seems to be pushing the idea of a constitutional amendment to shield the Transportation Fund from the "barbarians" at the gate.

Second pressure is pension costs rising fast and furious. Transportation Fund has its share of pensions to pay.

[Henry10]

Add here that if Federal Reserve's printing press didn't work on overtime, debt service would make the picture worse for the Transportation Fund. Keep in mind that CT has issued a lot of bonds for the projects.

If politicians were running a business they would be in an orange suit long time ago, and enjoying communal showers with Tyrone, Juan and Bruce.