A debate that has appeared
in the American political scene for what seems to be an eternity is the premise
that everyone should “pay their fair share”. So much attention has been trained
on this matter at the national level that most people have almost totally
ignored the concept at the local level where it should carry even greater
weight.
You see, there’s nothing
fair about property taxes.
In comparing properties of
equal size, why should a childless couple pay as much as a family of four, when
the family of four consumes far more in public services, especially public
schooling?
How is it just that
municipalities and schools in Allegany County and the Adirondacks reap revenues
from what are basically absentee landowners living elsewhere (camp owners) who
come to town just a few weekends and weeks a year and acquire almost no benefit
from the taxes they’ve paid? Why should those non-resident property owners be
excluded from having a vote in how their hard-earned dollars are being used in
the places where they are paying them?
In rural locales, why
should farmers carry the highest portion of the revenue burden just because
they happen to own vast tracks of land? It’s not as if they are receiving a
proportionate amount of services.
Why should property owners
pay so much for Medicaid (in most New York counties it’s 52 to 64 percent of
the county tax) when it should be the obligation of the population as a whole
to fund this forced benevolence?
Why should senior citizens
on fixed incomes who have been paying into the system their whole adult lives
continue to pay high taxes for things they won’t use anymore, but once did and
once paid for accordingly through taxation at that time?
Why should someone who
loves his home and wants to make it better with a swimming pool, patio or an
addition have to suffer the consequences at reassessment and end up paying more
in taxes than someone who left his land idle?
Beyond those glaring
displays of wrong, consider the very act of property taxation itself: Your bank
account is a form of property – would you like the government collecting a tax
on its value each and every year?
You wouldn’t stand for that
because it’s “yours” not “theirs”, so why do we allow it with our home and
land?
That begs the question: Is
it really even “yours”?
You are led to believe that
you own your home – and you even possess legal documents that show as much.
You really don’t; ownership
is only theoretical.
It’s more accurately stated
that you are renting the property from your local governments and school districts
at a premium because if you didn’t pay your taxes it wouldn’t take long for
that governing body to take that home from you --- even if the mortgage was
fully paid-for! How is that fair?
This travesty carries
special meaning in New York State where property taxes are 70% above the
national average.
Across America, people
think of their property taxes in terms of hundreds of dollars. Here, we think
of them in thousands of dollars.
In Niagara County a home
assessed at $100,000 has a total property tax bill around $3,000, meaning that
local homeowners pay over $1,200 more than their peers in other states with
equally-assessed properties. Someone whose home is valued at $200,000 pays about
$2,400 more than their peers elsewhere.
The extreme view would see
property taxes abolished. We know that will never happen.
But, a myriad of changes
could be accomplished to mitigate the unfairness of property taxes in the
Empire State or, at least, decrease their size.
Just a few of those ideas:
Replace the state’s Medicaid program with an HMO-driven voucher system; add
another 1 to 1.5 percent to the state sales tax to use a fairer
consumption-driven tax to decrease property owners’ contributions to Medicaid; utilize
clawbacks on businesses that break their promises to IDAs; end all corporate
welfare that uses 100% tax-free abatements (they have to pay something);
introduce assessment caps; adjust assessments to true market value (looking
back, how in the world did assessments go up during the Great Recession?); and
have a state commission provide oversight of proposed bills that would impose and/or
increase unfunded mandates upon counties, towns, villages and schools.
Those are all common sense
measures that could cut back on some of the unfairness and high costs that are
inherent to our property taxes. But, instead of pursuing them, it seems like
the state Legislature and Governor prefer to maintain an air of unfairness by
adding more unfunded mandates and more enrollees to Medicaid without relief to
residents.
It’s no wonder that so many
young minds and retirees have left.
They want someplace fairer
to work and live…and, despite what Governor Cuomo says, it has nothing to do
with fairer weather.
From the 13 May 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily
News
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