Property tax needs to be repealed / abolished NOW! (Morgan Co info here)

[Ingomike]

I'm pretty sure apartment complexes use more "government" than a homesteader. Some apt.s probably use A LOT more.

The apartment complex pays double the tax homesteads do.

Also, assessment is largely based on land and improvements to the land. Me, spending my money, improving my land costs the government nothing.

Part of that is protecting your property and improvements from the dwellers of the apartment complexes that “use A LOT more”.

Further, assessment don't account for the actual value a home might/might not have such as the materials, effeciencies, etc.

The assessment process does account for the quality of materials used.

Finally, while land may hold intrinsic value, unless the land is sold or borrowed against, the value is in the land, not the pocket of the land owners.

As I have said repeatedly, the tax is not on any income or wealth gain from the property, that is dealt with when it is sold, the assessment is a measure to determine the owners part of government services.

Big Red is right, the feds provide very little for what they take, the locals at least provide services one can see…

 

[manifest destiny]

The apartment complex pays double the tax homesteads do.

Ok. Do they only use double the resources? I say they use more. A LOT more.

Part of that is protecting your property and improvements from the dwellers of the apartment complexes that “use A LOT more”.

They might respond, eventually. But they offer no protection. I own an unimproved property. Literally nothing is there except trees. The assessor seems to think it needs 30% more "protecting". Thirty percent. Thirty. WTF changed since last year? Nothing except my rate of extortion. It's the same ****ing trees, man.

The assessment process does account for the quality of materials used.

No, they don't. They'll assess improvements such as buildings, driveways, pools, etc. They have no idea if the inside of the house is gutted, used as a meth lab, has 10 dogs doing dog things all over the house. Conceivably that home would be extorted at the same rate as his neighbor with granite counters, brazilian hardwood, etc. I heat and cool over 6k sqft for about $250 on average. Am I using more or less "government" than the homeowner with drafty windows, poor insulation, paying $1100/mo to heat when you combine his gas and electric? Rembemer, we have comparable homes with exactly the same acreage.

As I have said repeatedly, the tax is not on any income or wealth gain from the property, that is dealt with when it is sold, the assessment is a measure to determine the owners part of government services.

If the extortion rate isn't based on my "wealth", then why do they continue to increase their perception of my "wealth". If my assessed value last year was $10 and this year it's $13, they've increased my "wealth" by 30%. Am I using more government services this year than last? Am I using 30% more? In the words of Bidiot, " c'mon man!"

 

[KLB]

If you cannot understand more uses more in most cases I cannot help you. More property, (acres, sq feet, buildings), is more to defend from crime, protect from fire, provide drainage, and other services. Pretty simple really.

Now, stop deflecting and tell us, just who should pay for those services if not property owners?

More on your part. You are just so much smarter than everyone else. We just aren't capable of seeing the reality of the World the way you do.

One of us refuses to answer, and it isn't me. People consume services, not property. Go look at your County budget and learn where the money is actually being spent.

 

[jamil]

If you cannot understand more uses more in most cases I cannot help you. More property, (acres, sq feet, buildings), is more to defend from crime, protect from fire, provide drainage, and other services. Pretty simple really.

Now, stop deflecting and tell us, just who should pay for those services if not property owners?

There is some correlation between property size and consumption of government services. Not a lot though. And certainly barely even relevant when basing the assessed value on market value. If you cannot understand that, I cannot help you.

 

[jamil]

So the homeless-jobless person should pay a tax that covers the services for property owners when he buys his bottle?

How much does the government spend servicing 10 acres of property? You can't have it both ways. You can't say valuation based on market value AND that this is just paying for the government the home-owner consumes. On 10 acres? Are you kidding?

 

[jamil]

I see why you are not an accountant. Is not property ownership generally a sign of wealth? Our ancestors thought so and used it as a proxy for determining the basis for property taxes for centuries.

So you've just tacitly admitted that taxing based on real estate market value is taxing unrealized gain.

Based on what?

What's the antecedent here. What is what based on? I guess I'll have to hit all the points WRT what is what based on.

Value based taxes have little to do with services consumed. That statement is based on the fact that you can live in a $500M mansion and use 100% private resources for everything you need. **** the police. You can hire your own security. **** the fire department, you can have on-site resources. **** the schools, you can hire a nanny illegally residing in the US. I can go on. There's still other common government things that need paid for. But that has zero to do with the value of your home. What you need the rich people for, is to pay into the system because the poor people, the ones who use the most government, can't afford the government they use.

One could say that more valuable properties tend to use more government services, but that correlation is quite low. This is based on the idea that the value of your property is not proportional to the services you consume, and therefore the value of your property does not have a strong correlation to the government you consume.

If one cannot use the correct terms and concepts they probably do not have the knowledge to take this seriously. Many posts in this thread conflate federal issues to state and or local. The vast majority are just bi*****g.

If one cannot understand the that there is no correlation between home value and government consumed, why would anyone take such a person seriously? Many posts in this thread make such claims either tacitly or explicitly. The vast majority of such posts are merely justifying this way of taxing without the necessary understanding of the topic.

While I have no proof of this I suspect that because of the Indiana property tax structure individual property tax owners (those bi*****g here) probably are not paying their fair share. Many things in life seem to work that way, kinda like cat ladies paying for lifetime were actually subsidizing ESPN sports.

And this is just silly. You're whining about people noticing that their tax burden went way up and with no commensurate expenses by government to justify it. And that makes them understandably upset. Oops. Inflation went up. I guess we get to take mo of yo money without new government services in return. Sux for u.

Why is it the homesteads only pay 1% of their assessed value? Ag land is 2%, rental homes and apartments 2%, commercial 3%, do those other property types use more services per assessed dollar or are they subsidizing the homesteads? There seems to be a lot of woe is me in this thread with little regard for the facts of how or why.

Agreed. You should start paying more attention to the facts instead of trying to justify a ****** system. Why is it that homesteads only pay 1%? Realistically, it's because a business can't vote. Government has to dig into other's pockets, and if they go too far they lose their cushy jobs.

Logic seems thrown out here. We cannot even agree renters pay the property tax by paying their rent, so imagine the concept that every consumer of groceries, and other retailers are paying property tax will be lost here. Yep, go to the movies, eat out, play put-put, get a massage, you paid property tax, and those charges are 3%. The business pays the tax and ads it to the cost of business.

Do we have to do our economy 101 lesson again? Generally we like to say costs are passed onto the consumer. That's mostly true. But, let's say you're a slumlord and you charge 1200/month for rent. Your tenant faithfully pays that every month on time. Let's say your property tax breaks down to $400/month on that rental property.

So, now the housing market turns to ****. Values drop, so your property tax drops. Let's say you're now taxed $200/month less than before. Are you going to drop your rent to 1000/month? Eventually it might slide to that depending on what the rental market does. If home values decline, renters will become new buyers. So the rental market drops. And you'll have to drop your price to remain competitive. But you're not going to drop your price just because your expenses became less.

This nonsense of "you pass 100% of your expenses onto the customer" is not completely true. Your price depends on a lot more than just costs. Of course you don't price yourself into losing money. It does mean you can't pass every dollar of expense onto your customer. The market will keister-**** you if you try.

TL;DR you are a liar if you say you'll drop your rent 200/month when expenses decrease 200/month. And if you do, you're stupid. Also, you can't always raise the rent 200 when expenses go up 200. You might raise a little. But it depends on the market how much you can recoup.

 

[manifest destiny]

Would a compromise be that a homeowner only pays real estate property taxes if the home is leveraged/financed, but not if it is paid off? Or another idea would be to hold the tax rate per the purchase price? If the home is sold, the tax rate would then be adjusted per the new sale price and remain there until the home is sold again. I'm not sure of a perfect answer but the current system is arbitrary, oppressive and getting very expensive.

 

[jamil]

You really believe it is that abstract? That there is no physical concrete logical connection to the concept that the retailer spends money, including paying property tax, to offer goods or services and that payment for those goods and services is what pays for the costs of providing goods and services, including property tax?

Maybe retailers should stop paying property tax if they have no bearing on the ability to offer goods and services…

The price charged is what people are willing to pay, not just what your expenses are. Raise the price of those movie tickets during a pandemic and see how well you can afford your tax increase?

 

[jamil]

Would a compromise be that a homeowner only pays real estate property taxes if the home is leveraged/financed, but not if it is paid off? Or another idea would be to hold the tax rate per the purchase price? If the home is sold, the tax rate would then be adjusted per the new sale price and remain there until the home is old again. I'm not sure of a perfect answer but the current system is arbitrary, oppressive and getting very expensive.

How about we just do away with income taxes, property taxes, etcetera and just send people bills for what government they've consumed? Stop basing taxes on wealth. Base it on consumption of government. I guarantee you that we'd see a **** ton less government.

 

[jamil]

The apartment complex pays double the tax homesteads do.

Take your average section 8 apartment complex. I'd wager the number of police interactions involving those properties is many orders of magnitude higher than the interactions involving similar sized homesteads.

They should be charged more because their consumption density acre for acre is more. Not the case with rental houses though. But, I'd still wager that rental houses have more interactions with government entities per acre than homesteads do.

 

[manifest destiny]

How about we just do away with income taxes, property taxes, etcetera and just send people bills for what government they've consumed? Stop basing taxes on wealth. Base it on consumption of government. I guarantee you that we'd see a **** ton less government.

Some municipalities are starting to send a bill for consumption. I don't know if anywhere within Indiana does it, but some locales will send an invoice if police/fire are dispatched. I might agree to that if there weren't taxes already being paid for those services.

RED= Yes!

 

[jamil]

The assessment process does account for the quality of materials used.

It does to the extent that assessment is based on market value. A home with hardwood floors, and top quality materials, is worth more to people than a mud hut.

 

[jamil]

Some municipalities are starting to send a bill for consumption. I don't know if anywhere within Indiana does it, but some locales will send an invoice if police/fire are dispatched. I might agree to that if there weren't taxes already being paid for those services.

RED= Yes!

That's the assumption. There are common costs, and individualized costs. You'd get the bill for the total.

Probalby would be based on previous year. We pay taxes in the rears anyway so no big deal there. How much did government spend last year for common stuff? So things like payroll, vehicle maintenance. Etcetera. Then, how much did you consume? Add that to your communal total and that's your bill.

I think you should also have the ability to decline services.

 

[jamil]

People consume services, not property.

This just needed to be posted again.

 

[rhamersley]

Some municipalities are starting to send a bill for consumption. I don't know if anywhere within Indiana does it, but some locales will send an invoice if police/fire are dispatched. I might agree to that if there weren't taxes already being paid for those services.

RED= Yes!

Avon fire department sent us a bill for I believe $1600 for an ambulance ride from Reagan/Rockville Rd. to Reagan/10th street after she suffered a seizure. It's been 7 years, so don't remember if we got reimbursed for any part of it from insurance, but had to go to the department office and write a check for the whole amount.

 

[phylodog]

Avon fire department sent us a bill for I believe $1600 for an ambulance ride from Reagan/Rockville Rd. to Reagan/10th street after she suffered a seizure. It's been 7 years, so don't remember if we got reimbursed for any part of it from insurance, but had to go to the department office and write a check for the whole amount.

Similar experience here.

 

[Cavman]

Avon fire department sent us a bill for I believe $1600 for an ambulance ride from Reagan/Rockville Rd. to Reagan/10th street after she suffered a seizure. It's been 7 years, so don't remember if we got reimbursed for any part of it from insurance, but had to go to the department office and write a check for the whole amount.

How kentucky rolls with rural fire depts.. if ya dont pay a yearly fee they don't put your fire out

 

[Ingomike]

No, they don't. They'll assess improvements such as buildings, driveways, pools, etc. They have no idea if the inside of the house is gutted, used as a meth lab, has 10 dogs doing dog things all over the house. Conceivably that home would be extorted at the same rate as his neighbor with granite counters, brazilian hardwood, etc. I heat and cool over 6k sqft for about $250 on average. Am I using more or less "government" than the homeowner with drafty windows, poor insulation, paying $1100/mo to heat when you combine his gas and electric? Rembemer, we have comparable homes with exactly the same acreage.

Look at chapter 3, task 2, step 2, does is not say explicitly “ note the quality of construction and other features that affect the determination of grade, such as the quality of each aspect of the interior“?

The assessors have largely given up looking in homes today, they just wait until it is sold and get the data from the listings and through the use of trending use nearby sales to keep your assessment close to current.

https://www.in.gov/dlgf/files/2021-assessment-guidelines/Chapter-3.pdf

 

[DoggyDaddy]

The assessors have largely given up looking in homes today, they just wait until it is sold

Sounds like a good argument for setting the tax bill based on purchase price and leaving it there until the property is sold. Now where have I heard that suggested before?

 

[jamil]

Sounds like a good argument for setting the tax bill based on purchase price and leaving it there until the property is sold. Now where have I heard that suggested before?

Nah. I’m not conceding that there should be a property tax. If there is it should not be tied to value, even if it’s valuation is a distant snapshot.