there is here in this part of ny... if you can see the lake, your taxes ARE higher.
Posted on 09/13/2009 4:53:37 PM PDT by dennisw
The trainee inspectors then have to change their valuation to place the home in a higher bracket.
A further exercise trains inspectors to look out for ‘a garage large enough for two cars and a drive large enough for three’, a ‘hardwood conservatory with single glazing and tiled floor’, a ‘full sea view’ and recent modernisation.
The language in the manual will strike homeowners who have carried out improvements as positively Orwellian.
Alongside pictures of homes and their value-adding features – including in some cases a Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass on the pictures for inspecting building features – inspectors are urged to ‘use detective work’.
In July, The Mail on Sunday revealed that the Valuation Office Agency is compiling a database that will give all 23million homes in England one of 100 ‘dwelling house codes’, which are expected to form the basis of a council tax revaluation if Labour wins the next Election.
Middle-income families are likely to bear the brunt of any tax increases
Handbook, complete with audio commentary, sets out how inspectors can catch homeowners who have so-called ‘value significant’ features.
One exercise reads: ‘Your office has been informed the roofspace has been converted into a fourth bedroom. Your task is to establish whether existing details [for the house] require amendment.’
If you have just proudly added an en suite bathroom to your house or laid a tiled floor in your conservatory, then beware.
As part of secret plans for a council tax hike on the middle classes, inspectors have been armed with a new ‘snoopers handbook’ to ensure that no home improvement – however discreet – escapes their scrutiny.
The Big Brother manual trains valuation experts how to follow up leads from ‘informants’ by undertaking ‘detective work’, including photographing properties, plundering estate agents’ details and room-by-room inspections.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Informants and rats will be depended on. The neighbor who hates you will tell the inspectors about any home improvements you make
The snooper’s handbook: Guide to ensure no home improvement escapes the Council Tax inspectors
By Charles Rangel
Coming soon to a Assessors’ office near you in the US.
We thought we threw off this kind of tyranny when we split from the UK.
But now we have invited it back in and in it has sauntered in at all levels: Federal, State and Local.
As long as there are democrats and RINOS, you can 100% guarantee this kind of treatment. If not now, soon.
yep
This would make for a great Monty Python sketch.
They already use aerial photography in my county in CA to look for un-permitted improvements.
We thought we threw off this kind of tyranny when we split from the UK
The Property Tax is a feature of feudalism. It represents extortion demanded by the local thugs and bullys: the people who forced everyone else to call them "noblemen". Protection money supposedly paid so that they would go fight to protect the locals from...another guy who wanted to tax them.
The sooner we throw off property taxation in favor of allodial title and pay for government through excise taxes - as the Constitution prescribed for the federal government - the sooner we finally divorce our selves from the evil known as feudalism.
Feudalism = Government ownership of private property = Communism
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
Ha! I was challenged just today by a UK friend as to what if any countries in Europe were socialist.
I replied, well for starters...the UK.
***Coming soon to a Assessors’ office near you in the US.***
Isn’t there some state that has a “view tax”? The better the view from your front window or patio the more they tax you.
Huh, sounds like the property tax vultures around here...I won’t build another birdhouse(that’s sarcasm) let alone another barn or put even a small addition on the house.
there is here in this part of ny... if you can see the lake, your taxes ARE higher.
“Coming soon to a Assessors’ office near you in the US.”
It was suggested in our city, but the outcry squashed that idea fast.
The City Council did have the decency to act at least abashed by the idea.
I’ve noticed that whatever England institutes winds up here albeit 10 to 20 years later.
They seem to be improving the selectivity (sensitivity?) to get more money in...:^)
At present, England only has nine bands that homes fall into —
http://www.voa.gov.uk/council_tax/bands_england_wales.htm
Large and irritable dogs for security? Is that a home improvement?
I’m afraid to plant flowers. Every time we’ve made any visible (from the outside) improvements around here, the tax man has shown up with his camera within a day or two.
If the Brits return the Gordon Brown government to power they are fools.
Where I’m at the county taxes are higher for lake front homes, mine are almost 1000K higher than the house across the street that is “only lake view”
In my county, Whatcom County, WA, they use aerial surveillance photos to monitor land use and code violations.
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