Posted on 01/29/2024 10:30:57 PM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
Americans are growing increasingly frustrated at property tax levels, a new poll has shown.
According to a new UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll, around two thirds of Americans surveyed believe their property tax rate is too high. The poll was conducted in 2023, between December 14 to 18, with 1,024 participants across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
The survey found 69 percent of adults in the U.S. believe their property tax rates were "unfair", with 27 percent saying they were "about right", and 3 percent claiming they are taxed too little.
Across the country, property taxes, also known as real-estate taxes, are imposed at a local level, with homeowners in each state paying different amounts. Property taxes go back into local communities, helping to pay for infrastructure improvements, public services and schooling. According to retail lender Rocket Mortgage, the highest rates are applied in New Jersey, Illinois and New Hampshire, whereas the lowest taxes are paid in Hawaii, Alabama and Colorado.......
Of all the taxes involved in the survey—property, state sales, and federal income taxes—property taxes are viewed as the biggest burden on Americans' wallets. According to the poll, 67 percent think federal income taxes are too high, along with 62 percent saying they thought state sales taxes cost too much.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Worse, non property owners are allowed to vote to increase your taxes being lulled to believing there is no impact on them because they don't own property.
It’s essentially a wealth tax.
Who wants any of that?
There are also lots of exemptions given to big corporations in order to lure jobs.
'It saved my Mom and me from losing our House'. That shut him real quick.
Wait til their homes get re-assessed, like mine just was. Up Nearly 50%, in 3 years
Unfortunately, too few people think about that. Let’s say you work five hours to earn $100, and the government takes $20.
The government just confiscated one hour of your life.
Yep, Prop. 13...one of the last vestiges of sanity left in California!
Thanks again Howard Jarvis...RIP!
My total prop tax % even with multiple school district bonds measures: 1.176270%
($7k homeowners value exemption also).
Sales Tax is basically insane. The first lecture in every basic economics class should emphasize the rule: If you want more of something subside it, if you want less of something tax it. Therefore, raising a sales tax will serve to decrease sales, hurting small businesses which can least afford it and possibly drive them out of business.
I am not a property owner, but I absolutely refuse to vote
for any new taxation or fees.
Sadly, I’m in the small minority of people who have adopted
that policy.
They will force us out of our forever home of over 30 yrs...
I am totally against targeted taxes where the government comes up with a scheme to “fully” fund an existing program with a new tax (e.g., Hunting License wildlife fund, school lunch program, etc). So the tax is passed but the money that used to directed to that program is now a slush fund.
This country can't even get basic services right. Everywhere you turn in our area be it state. city, town, county or federal looks like a slum. The county here can't even straighten road signs, the state can't keep guard rails repaired or much of anything. The roads are just one huge continuous speed bump.
Yeah, people should be tired of property taxes. They aren't getting any return on them.
Yes. It is human nature to work (hunt and gather) and to provide your family an abode (home, condo, apartment, cabin, hut, cave). It is immoral to tax either of those. It is immoral to tax basic human necessities.
How do you think the WEF will force use into Soviet-style dreary apartment highrises in crowded cities?
Property taxes.
Now the sales tax on top of state income tax and property taxes is 10% or more. Three times what it was back in the day. Not only is it three times higher the price of everything that is taxed is much higher. The real increase in sales tax after inflation is 3X what it was. For that 3 fold increase in cost to us every single service is worse or not at all.
I believe this is fallout from “targeted taxes”. We loved our parks, roads, etc. So the government then said they have budget shortfalls and cannot continue supporting these tax funded programs. People then naively vote extra taxes to keeps these existing programs. And then the new tax funds the parks and the money that was allocated to the park becomes a slush fund for more graft and other projects.
Even worse, the government “borrowed” from the park for another project creating the budget shortfall.
The Republicans in Congress should try to send to the states a constitutional amendment that would cap middle class property taxation, such as:
Property tax on any residential property of less than 2799 square feet of finished space shall be no higher the 2019 dollar amount on the property, or for a newer or since resold property what a similar property in the same area would have been taxed at for 2019 if it lacked owner specific tax breaks, increased by 3% per calendar year since 2019 and by any percentage increase to its finished space.
Fighting for such a property tax cap now in Congress would add the electors of several deep blue states to Trump’s total and make Congress turn deep red come November.
Even devoted Democratic voters do not want to get taxed out of their homes.
How would schools get funded if property taxes are capped to 2019 scale levels? By higher sales taxation and by services taxation that is used in Florida in lieu of having a state income tax.
I don’t want to pay for schooling of the kids of the people pampering the well-to-do. The well-to-do need to pay for such schooling via service taxation.
“Of all the taxes involved in the survey—property, state sales, and federal income taxes—property taxes are viewed as the biggest burden on Americans’ wallets. “
I’d guess that for most families the *actual* annual dollar burden is, in descending order:
1. federal income tax (including payroll tax for Social Security)
2. State sales tax
3. Property tax
For those who aren’t self-employed, federal income taxes are withheld from paychecks. Because the typical wage earner never sees the money, he doesn’t think about how much he’s actually shelling out to the feds.
State sales tax is a death by a thousand cuts. Even in high sales tax states like California paying 8 or 9% on $100 worth of stuff at Target or Walmart is only $8 or $9 a pop and people barely notice. It’s only on big ticket items like vehicles that the taxpayer is likely to really feel the hit of sales tax.
Because property tax must be shelled out with big lump-sum checks once or twice a years, more people feel the hit in a way that they don’t with other taxes that are actually more burdensome in the long run.
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