Hopefully some of you have seen some relief in your most
recent property tax bill.
Unfortunately I feel that this new tax bill is merely a
band-aid and is not meaningful tax relief.
This tax bill cuts the budgets of meaningful services
which people depend on everyday, such as police and fire
protection.
Projections of next years taxes are already showing an
increase, while your local municipalities are showing a
major decrease in their budgets.
The ones hit hardest this year on their tax bill were
multiple property owners and agriculture.
Multiple property owners being people that own rental
properties. Their increase will only be passed down to
the ones living in rental properties. Farmers saw an
increase in their assessed value of more than 25%. In
addition they also have a much larger 2% cap rather than
the 1% cap residential owners have.
Farmers will have no choice but to raise their rates
following in the same manner as the rental property
owners have. This will obviously increase food prices
for everyone.
As you can see by now this is a vicious circle, what do
we increase, what do we decrease and where does it come
from?
Without greater economic development there is no way
individuals can afford the burden of our present tax
system, so I feel a total comprehensive package led by
economic development is needed. If we can create this
development it will have a major impact on everything,
from reduced property taxes, improved health care and
better paying jobs.
This all works together as part of a complete package.
