It is indeed an evil central socialist government; however, the local governments are complicit in this scheme.
For one thing, a "tax district" like what is described here is aimed at addressing a particular challenge in certain tax structures, where the major sources of taxation (corporate, personal income, etc.) don't raise revenue from businesses that use public resources but may not pay the cost of them. This "tax district" approach is ideally suited to pay for infrastructure improvements like transportation, water and sewer utilities in industries that employ a lot of people but don't contribute enough to the tax base to cover the cost of their burden on the local infrastructure.
If I live in City A and work in City B, one of the anomalies of the tax system may be that I pay all of my municipal taxes to City A but spend a third of my life in City B.
We recently had a local ballot for a school expansion for a ADDITIONAL gymnasium. In a school with less than 400 students K-12. We already have a nice gym.
Every voter in the district was MAILED a ballot.
However, the instructions were so confuusing and lengthy for mailing them back, plus you had to pay $4.00 to mail them back.
The election office is under construction so to hand deliver your ballot took quite an effort.
30% of the ballots were returned. Of the 30% the vote was 60 / 40 in favor. The local paper reported it as an overwhelming show of support.
It was not an overwhelming show of support. 60 percent of 30% were in favor. 40% of 30% were opposed and the rest were either too lazy, uninterested or too confused to reply.
Never have we ever had such a ballot measure in our district. They pushed this through in an off year with no other measures so they could be assured it would pass.
Passage of a tax increase with only 18% of the electorate in favor. Dirty tricks and there is nothing that can be done about it.
I live in a town in South Texas and there have been limits placed on tax % increases by Texas Statutes.
However!!!!! They get by it by simply increasing the tax value of your property and VIOLA! They are able to circumvent the system altogether.
I have not had a tax % increase on one of my properties in over 10 years but the tax I pay is more than double that which I paid 10 years ago. The reason? They simply valued the house at twice the price it was 10 years ago.
Guess where most of your property taxes go? To the bloated and out of control school district.
I believe that school taxes should be paid by people who use the service for 12 years for each child they send to school...while they attend. Home schoolers should be exempt. Why should a 70 year old man pay school taxes for 52 years for having no children in school?
Isn’t it wonderful that you can teach your children morals at home and then be forced to pay the indoctrination centers for the privilege of having the socialist system brainwash them to believe just the opposite?
Every American has been taxed without representation since we started paying Congress and the POTUS.