FARK.com: (6891529) Home values drop, property taxes rise. You can't explain that

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		Home values drop, property taxes rise. You can't explain that (npr.org)		141
		More: Obvious, Cuyahoga County, property taxes, Shaker Heights, National Association of Counties

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7663 clicks; posted to Main » on 20 Jan 2012 at 9:33 AM | Favorite | share:

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Weaver95

2012-01-20 09:02:59 AM

you know....unfair taxation is kind of a big deal with Americans. just sayin is all...

NewportBarGuy

2012-01-20 09:05:27 AM

Isn't it fun to discover that your town budget requires a steady, increasing stream of funds no matter what happens to property values? I don't know how, but I got lucky and my home was devalued by $200,000 from the peak and the tax rate stayed the same and my bill went down. My neighbors? Well, they are f*cking pissed. We had houses right next to each other have huge price changes and absolutely no reason why. Turns out the appraiser just did some drive-bys and tried to comp the whole area based on his gut.

Strangely, his numbers allowed the revenue to stay exactly the same as it was the previous year. Hire someone to come up with the number you need and not one that is fair to taxpayers? You can't explain that.

It's simple, though. Your town has a budget. Unless you can live with things being cut from that budget, you will either pay a higher rate on a lower valuation or pay a higher amount on an inflated valuation. They still need to draw in the funds to pay for the budget. So, if you liked the movie Kuffs and want a private police force, go right ahead. I hear Christian Slater could use the work and who doesn't love Milla Jovovich?

monoski

2012-01-20 09:35:36 AM

I can explain it; Municipalities and states need the money.

F22raptom

2012-01-20 09:36:03 AM

its obviously the jews and the corperations making money to fund iranian nuclear warheads

star_topology

2012-01-20 09:36:23 AM

Sure you can:

Socialism.

robhidalgo

2012-01-20 09:38:11 AM

F22raptom: its obviously the jews and the corperations making money to fund iranian nuclear warheads

Cut and print, folks. We're done here.

kellynoel

2012-01-20 09:39:12 AM

$3,700 paid per $100,000

Holy freaking crap, that is OUTRAGEOUS.

padraig

2012-01-20 09:40:05 AM

Well, isn't a property tax based on property value stupid anyway ?

Shouldn't the metric used reflect actual usage of city services ? Like size of the lot, number of rooms, etc... ?

I mean, even if property values are not constant, needs are.

LegacyDL

2012-01-20 09:40:22 AM

F22raptom: its obviously the jews and the corperations making money to fund iranian nuclear warheads

Just so that Israel has a reason to destroy Egypt for making those deals with New Zealand.

It all makes sense now.

Mearen

2012-01-20 09:40:25 AM

"Shaker Heights comes to mind, where the voters have voted for those school levies, which is going to naturally raise the taxes that they pay," Steen says.

This is the single biggest flaw in government. They never think to cut spending elsewhere, the answer is always raise taxes.

manimal2878

2012-01-20 09:42:36 AM

NewportBarGuy: t's simple, though. Your town has a budget. Unless you can live with things being cut from that budget, you will either pay a higher rate on a lower valuation or pay a higher amount on an inflated valuation. They still need to draw in the funds to pay for the budget.

This. Just because your house is worth less doesn't mean it costs less to have a police force or street lights. You can either raise the tax rate or lower the number of police and street lights.

manimal2878

2012-01-20 09:43:47 AM

padraig: Like size of the lot, number of rooms, etc... ?

What do you think the property value is based on if not those things?

valkore

2012-01-20 09:46:20 AM

Mearen: "Shaker Heights comes to mind

Isn't that where Michael J Fox lives?

Tapakip

2012-01-20 09:48:09 AM

Farkers not getting an obvious Bill O'reilly meme.....you can't explain that.

LabGrrl

2012-01-20 09:48:50 AM

As someone living in a house that's about 75% of the size of the ones around me, on a lot that's considered "one and a half lots" by the city, I'm not getting a kick out of this.

farkreader007

2012-01-20 09:49:56 AM

Union wages and benefits. There it is now explained.

Bob16

2012-01-20 09:50:03 AM

The explanation is simple.

You're in the loser country.

It can be explained so it has to be denied.

Girion47

2012-01-20 09:50:08 AM

OldManDownDRoad

2012-01-20 09:50:54 AM

manimal2878: NewportBarGuy: t's simple, though. Your town has a budget. Unless you can live with things being cut from that budget, you will either pay a higher rate on a lower valuation or pay a higher amount on an inflated valuation. They still need to draw in the funds to pay for the budget.

This. Just because your house is worth less doesn't mean it costs less to have a police force or street lights. You can either raise the tax rate or lower the number of police and street lights.

"Whenever they talk about cutting taxes, it's always about schools and cops. But when it comes to spending taxes, it's always for some guy downtown in a leather seat whose name you've never heard."

Wisdom from my grandad.

My favorite tax hike? On the Outer Banks, because they needed to "promote tourism." If you've been to the Outer Banks of NC in the last 20 years, you know the last thing they need is more tourists. So the voters defeated it, 70% to 30%, and the commissioners promptly threatened to cut the school budget.

Spending someone else's money is always fun!

vudukungfu

2012-01-20 09:51:09 AM

Let me explain American Economics to you.
How many of you farkers out there are Earning money?
You guys, pay up, now.
How many of you farkers out there are nto earning money?
You guys, Get in line for benifits, now.
How many of you farkers does this make angry?
STFU and pay moar taxes.

-signed, the rich.

aninconvenienterection

2012-01-20 09:51:23 AM

Tapakip: Farkers not getting an obvious Bill O'reilly meme.....you can't explain that.

What's a Bill O'Reilly?

JackieRabbit

2012-01-20 09:51:29 AM

My property tax has increased six times in the 12 years I've owned my home. It went up nearly $400 this year. Why? Well the way my county "assesses" value is to feed the sale price of homes into a computer and compute the average for all houses in a one mile radius of each house. So, during the boom, developers came in and through up a lot of McMansions, which had average sale prices of around $700K. Up go my taxes even though the market value of my home is only around $280K. In other words, I have to help pay for the arseholes who bought more home than they could afford. But even though property values have dropped (especially the McMansions), my tax still went up because the county increased the millage rate. I guess they have no choice since parts of he country have rather high foreclosure rates and their tax revenue is down. 60% of my tax goes to the school system and we have really good schools, so there's that.

Matthew Keene

2012-01-20 09:53:28 AM

LabGrrl: As someone living in a house that's about 75% of the size of the ones around me, on a lot that's considered "one and a half lots" by the city, I'm not getting a kick out of this.

The only solution for you is to 'go down.' Without approval from the city, secretly excavate and finish about ten floors of finished basement under the house. That'll show the bastards.

Bob16

2012-01-20 09:55:29 AM

farkreader007: Union wages and benefits. There it is now explained.

Bwahahahaha

yeah it couldn't possibly have anything to do with right wing nut job politicians giving tax breaks to corporations and the rich right before they claimed the unions blew up the budget.

Like Walker did.

This About That

2012-01-20 09:56:55 AM

When governments go broke, they squeeze money out of the governed. How hard is that to explain?

DECMATH

2012-01-20 09:58:21 AM

Mearen: "Shaker Heights comes to mind, where the voters have voted for those school levies, which is going to naturally raise the taxes that they pay," Steen says.

This is the single biggest flaw in government. They never think to cut spending elsewhere, the answer is always raise taxes.

Problem with that is they can't legally divert funds collected as city or county taxes into a school system. School boards are "public" but not connected to or dependent on other government bodies -- except when State or Federal subsidies can be obtained....

I can't complain because the tax paid is never the full percentage of all the "millage levies" added up applied to the full "market value" of my house. The county official in charge of the billing always applies a fudge factor (usually on the order of 0.20, which I think has gone up to about 0.32) to what would nominally be collected, to make sure they only collect what they need, and not too much. Since the same fudge factor applies to everybody - no complaint.

trentrockport

2012-01-20 09:58:40 AM

kellynoel: $3,700 paid per $100,000

Holy freaking crap, that is OUTRAGEOUS.

IIRC, It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. It's per $100,000 assessed value, which is a number that pretty much has no basis in reality except to obfuscate the actual tax rate paid. If you owned a house in Ohio that you'd paid $100,000 for, its assessed value might be something like $40,000 or $50,000.

Mind you, this knowledge is over two decades old.

bhcompy

2012-01-20 09:59:09 AM

Property tax increases either need to be tied to general inflation(not government cost inflation) or set at some other fixed rate. Systems that are tied to property values with no increase controls cause the problems that resulted in Prop 13 in CA.

Nurglitch

2012-01-20 09:59:19 AM

LabGrrl

2012-01-20 09:59:34 AM

Matthew Keene: LabGrrl: As someone living in a house that's about 75% of the size of the ones around me, on a lot that's considered "one and a half lots" by the city, I'm not getting a kick out of this.

The only solution for you is to 'go down.' Without approval from the city, secretly excavate and finish about ten floors of finished basement under the house. That'll show the bastards.

Wait, how did you know about the love bunker? Are you a spy?

Polly Ester

2012-01-20 10:00:43 AM

aninconvenienterection: Tapakip: Farkers not getting an obvious Bill O'reilly meme.....you can't explain that.

What's a Bill O'Reilly?

It's a song by The Who, but that's not important right now.

LarryDan43

2012-01-20 10:02:22 AM

Well you wouldn't let then put in red light cameras.... so this is what you get.

Pharmdawg

2012-01-20 10:03:55 AM

My county nearly doubled property taxes and people stopped moving trailer parks into the county. You don't need to explain that.

bhcompy

2012-01-20 10:04:43 AM

JackieRabbit: My property tax has increased six times in the 12 years I've owned my home. It went up nearly $400 this year. Why? Well the way my county "assesses" value is to feed the sale price of homes into a computer and compute the average for all houses in a one mile radius of each house. So, during the boom, developers came in and through up a lot of McMansions, which had average sale prices of around $700K. Up go my taxes even though the market value of my home is only around $280K. In other words, I have to help pay for the arseholes who bought more home than they could afford. But even though property values have dropped (especially the McMansions), my tax still went up because the county increased the millage rate. I guess they have no choice since parts of he country have rather high foreclosure rates and their tax revenue is down. 60% of my tax goes to the school system and we have really good schools, so there's that.

And that's where California got it wrong before the voters said fark you to the state and voted in Prop 13 to fix the growth rate of property tax. I'm a firm believer that property tax that stays local, particularly in schools, is something that people will grudgingly pay for because there are strong connections between school quality, home values, neighborhood quality, etc. When California nationalized property taxes for schools(under the guise of equal protections), they took away the biggest incentive for taxpayers to live with the system

Matthew Keene

2012-01-20 10:04:57 AM

LabGrrl: Matthew Keene: LabGrrl: As someone living in a house that's about 75% of the size of the ones around me, on a lot that's considered "one and a half lots" by the city, I'm not getting a kick out of this.

The only solution for you is to 'go down.' Without approval from the city, secretly excavate and finish about ten floors of finished basement under the house. That'll show the bastards.

Wait, how did you know about the love bunker? Are you a spy?

I do know you added a half bath without a building permit, and you keep an old VW on blocks in the garage. But no, I'm no spy.

Reverend Monkeypants

2012-01-20 10:05:32 AM

SuperTramp

2012-01-20 10:07:25 AM

In a growth-based economy, woudn't median incomes be rising enough to cover increased taxes on rising property values?

manimal2878

2012-01-20 10:11:21 AM

Girion47: manimal2878: NewportBarGuy: t's simple, though. Your town has a budget. Unless you can live with things being cut from that budget, you will either pay a higher rate on a lower valuation or pay a higher amount on an inflated valuation. They still need to draw in the funds to pay for the budget.

This. Just because your house is worth less doesn't mean it costs less to have a police force or street lights. You can either raise the tax rate or lower the number of police and street lights.

Or we could lower the pay of the police.

Actually just lower the number of police, the fact they can sit around write speeding tickets in my area means they don't have enough real work to do.

Sure, you could, but what politician is going to put that idea forward? That is more poisonous than raising taxes.

duffman13

2012-01-20 10:11:31 AM

Yeah my property taxes went up this year while my home value stayed the same.

bhcompy

2012-01-20 10:12:16 AM

SuperTramp: In a growth-based economy, woudn't median incomes be rising enough to cover increased taxes on rising property values?

Where I live between the mid 1990s and 2007 property values rose from ~3x median income to ~9x median income. They're down to ~6x median income currently(~2.5x is considered the standard for affordable home values). So, obviously, even with the growth economy in various parts of the last 15-20 years, median incomes aren't rising nearly enough.

Arctic Phoenix

2012-01-20 10:12:20 AM

farkreader007: Union wages and benefits. There it is now explained.

8/10. You'll get some real bites on this one.

wmoonfox

2012-01-20 10:12:49 AM

The county assesses my property value at roughly twice the market value. How cool is that?

DrewCurtisJr

2012-01-20 10:13:35 AM

The budget is the budget and the government is going to get its money. Your home value assessment determines what share of the budget you are going to pay compared to your neighbors.

BloodySaxon

2012-01-20 10:14:03 AM

Bob16: farkreader007: Union wages and benefits. There it is now explained.

Bwahahahaha

yeah it couldn't possibly have anything to do with right wing nut job politicians giving tax breaks to corporations and the rich right before they claimed the unions blew up the budget.

Like Walker did.

You don't really....get government do you....

Mr. Right

2012-01-20 10:15:07 AM

As the article points out, this is because of laws passed in the 70s and 80s that limited the amount of increase when property values rose radically. In my case, I've lived in the same home for about 30 years. In that time, the SEV (state equalized value) rose dramatically but the assessed value was only allowed to go up a small percentage, creating a rather large disparity between the taxable value and the actual value. In the last couple of years, the SEV dropped quite a bit but has not fallen below the assessed value, thus my taxes have continued to rise, albeit slowly. While that sucks, it beats the old system where your assessed value rose as rapidly as your SEV. I am old enough to remember when municipalities whose millage proposals had been defeated at the ballot box simply instructed the assessor to increase property values a certain percent to increase revenues to the desired level. This was done under the table, of course, but it happened nonetheless. The laws that are biting us now were required to keep our elected officials honest.

georgeyporgey

2012-01-20 10:16:36 AM

Nobody has blames Bush yet. Let me be the fist. I blame Bush. Because in fark land, every bad is Bush's fault. Every good is not!

Ishidan

2012-01-20 10:17:00 AM

Polly Ester: aninconvenienterection: Tapakip: Farkers not getting an obvious Bill O'reilly meme.....you can't explain that.

What's a Bill O'Reilly?

It's a song by The Who, but that's not important right now.

The what?

Bobo_Spiewack

2012-01-20 10:18:44 AM

This is a problem in my town too. They keep raising property tax rates to steady income to keep providing services.

It's annoying, but I enjoy the fact that my kids have art and languages in school. So I pay. At least I KNOW where the money goes.

The bigger problem is the Tea Party Derp Patrol and their "NO TAXES EVAR" crap got people to vote down an operating levy for the schools. That levy was, again, simply to continue services. It had no provisions for raises or to buy new gold-plated toilet fixtures for the principals offices or whatever they have running around under theri tri-corner hats. Just for us to have what we have now because property values dropped and revenue declined.

So now, our values have declined MORE because our schools have cut all extra-curriculars and no one wants to move in. So next year's levy will be even BIGGER because in addition to continuing services theyw ill have to restore what we lose now.

Great job, idjits. Every time I dirve past that house with the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, I want to firebomb it.

Joe Blowme

2012-01-20 10:19:01 AM

vudukungfu: Let me explain American Economics to you.
How many of you farkers out there are Earning money?
You guys, pay up, now.
How many of you farkers out there are nto earning money?
You guys, Get in line for benifits, now.
How many of you farkers does this make angry?
STFU and pay moar taxes.

-signed, the rich.

You sound ignorant and jealous. Try getting out of your moms basement and int o the real world once in a while.

/psssss the "rich" pay the majority of the bill so you can keep being a lazy pos

crowbar032

2012-01-20 10:20:22 AM

I would dearly love to get rid of property tax for this very reason. In my area it is usually an unelected person that arbitrarily assigns an arbitrary value to your property based on arbitrary features. Personally I'd rather kill the property tax and raise the sales tax a half percent*.

*if said revenues are used for the express functions detailed in the article (trash pickup, police, fire, ect.)

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