The title should not be "House Wrongly Valued". It should be "Government OVERCHARGES and SPENDS Tax Receipts". Or "Government Sponsored Theft In Indiana"!
Here is the thing, folks. The story mentions that 18 government "taxing units" had to return $3.1 million in tax money. But, they would not have to "return" that money if they didn't charge for it. They also mention in the story that a "budget shortfall" has occurred. But there would BE no "shortfall" if the government agencies had not SPENT (or planned on spending) that money in the first place.
Let's put it this way. If you check your bank account and suddenly there is $3.1 million dollars in it that you've never had before, don't you imagine that something is odd? Isn't it patently obvious that you have been given money that is not yours? Of course you would realize that someone, somewhere is missing that money and they will eventually come to you to find it.
So, do you immediately start spending that money even as you know that this must be a mistake? Of course you don't. You go to your bank and ask to get a clarification. When it is proved that the sudden windfall is not yours, the bank corrects the matter and there is no harm, no foul. You are at square one, back to where your account should have been before the mistake.
But, no, the City of Valparaiso imagines that their tax base suddenly jumped $3.1 million dollars. It doesn't question the idea that it somehow must DESERVE this windfall. It doesn't investigate and try to realize that there was an obvious mistake that their tax base jumped over $3 million dollars in one year. Then it compounded the problem by imagining that it should immediately start spending all that money.
No, what we have here is a city that never doubted for a minute that it should spend money, money that it didn't deserve, money that came to it by an obvious error in the system, and money that it never had in the past. Suddenly, like drunken sailors, or thieves, they began bloating budgets and spending goals to use up this money they did not deserve.
This is morality tale, one that reveals government to be filled with avarice, greed, and stupidity.
-Warner Todd Huston
Hmm. Sounds like government.
Another way to look at it: The government always increases its requirements to match its revenue. Need matters less than availability.
If I lived in a small town and reponsible for proerty taxes and there was a house worth $400 millon I think I would want to go see that sucker. I don´t think there is anyway these government people actually believed they had a house in town worth that much money.