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no one should be forced out of a house they lived in for years because of property taxes. its not our fault that you decide to rent a 1 br apt in a crappy neighborhood
btw, an alternative is to lobby for special tax breaks for seniors. The rest of the town may be willing to deal with that for a number of reasons (the seniors don't have school-aged kids, and they don't commit crimes)
Not directly. And I wouldn't want a lobby for seniors; only to not directly tax property owners.
no one should be forced out of a house they lived in for years because of property taxes.
Wrong on two counts:
(1) they aren't forced out, as I argued previously,
(2) the fact that you've lived there for years doesn't give you the right to keep living there.
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its not our fault that you decide to rent a 1 br apt in a crappy neighborhood
No, it's your fault that you want to stick your hand in my pocket.
It's not my fault that you or anyone else chose to live in a place where they can't afford to pay their property taxes.
If you want me to pay those property taxes, maybe you should move out of the neighborhood and let me move in.
You do your best, but if you find that you can't make the payments then its time to move out or organize a political voting bloc that can take over the town and substantially lower taxes.
Ok, then by the same token, if you lose your job - tough luck, you should have budgeted for that!
Ok, then by the same token, if you lose your job - tough luck, you should have budgeted for that!
Absolutely.
I make a pretty decent living, and I think it would be more than a little unfair if the tax payers, many who earn less than I do, to be forced to continue to pay me my current salary if I lost my job.
The argument that there should be some kind of social safety net is not about granting everyone the right to maintain their present standard of living indefinitely, thereby granting them full immunity to the consequences of their actions.
I make a pretty decent living, and I think it would be more than a little unfair if the tax payers, many who earn less than I do, to be forced to continue to pay me my current salary if I lost my job.
The argument that there should be some kind of social safety net is not about granting everyone the right to maintain their present standard of living indefinitely, thereby granting them full immunity to the consequences of their actions.
I agree. But then why should only property owners pay for the entire town's services? Can't we shift towards a more user-based system? Or at least a system that includes renters as directly as property owners?
I agree. But then why should only property owners pay for the entire town's services? Can't we shift towards a more user-based system? Or at least a system that includes renters as directly as property owners?
Any landlord who doesn't set their rent to cover property taxes is an idiot. Hence, assuming non-idiot landlords renters do pay property taxes. In fact given that the landlord has to allow for the place being vacant on occasions (and hence charge enough to cover that time) renters are paying a higher proportion of property taxes when they are there.
I agree. But then why should only property owners pay for the entire town's services?
The landlord already pays property tax, and passes the costs on to renters. If renters paid tax on top of that, that would be a double tax.
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Can't we shift towards a more user-based system?
Yes, but that would require a radical overhaul of the existing system (if you're doing a straight "user pays", why have public schools at all ?). Incremental steps such as vouchers would be more practical and less controversial.
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Or at least a system that includes renters as directly as property owners?
Because the town still wants to collect taxes when the place is vacant, or when the owner occupies it.
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