Posted on 05/30/2002 8:46:27 AM PDT by TroutStalker
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:46:33 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The Good Book instructs us to render unto Caesar what is his. But what do you do when Caesar casts his greedy eye on your local church -- in order to replace it with a discount retailer?
This tale comes from Orange County, California, once known as Reagan Country. On Tuesday night the Cypress City Council voted 4-0 to invoke its powers of eminent domain to seize land owned by the Cottonwood Christian Center, which would then be sold to Costco. The growing non-denominational Christian church had bought the mostly vacant land in 1999 because its existing building was bursting at the seams.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Maybe they should get more of those questions...
City of Cypress willing to 'pony up' ~$14.5 million in the hopes of attracting Costco(not a done deal) when the church will attract people which will cause Costco to purchase a different parcel at a better price.
The City Council of Cypress has their 'collective' head where the sun don't shine; but, then, they can never pass on the opportunity to spend taxpayers' money. Watch the 'deal' Costco pulls once the 'city' has the property. They will probably want a 10-year property tax exemption just for coming into Cypress. Remember, these are the same type of geniuses that came up with California's energy deregulation plan that would somehow outwit the energy experts. Yeah, right!!!
State sales tax, county property tax, no city sales tax. Costco will probably have more employees than the church, and require more 'city services', and thus state and county will probably do some 'revenue sharing'--not nearly at the level of 'charitable giving' as the church.
I'm not liking the looks of this...
No, my mistake since I researched it a bit. It was Sol Price, founder of Price Club which was acquired by Costco about 10 years ago. (But good luck trying to google any references to his Communist Party membership, which I had seen mentioned a number of times back in the 80s when being a Communist wasn't considered any different than being a Presbytarian. Ah, those were the days!)
I don't know how California works, but only $25,000 in annual property taxes would be fantastic, considering the property alone, with no buildings, costs $14 million. That's a property tax rate of 0.0178% or $1.78 mills (here in CT, we measure property taxes in mills, which is how much you pay for each thousand dollars of value).
1.78 mills is incredibly low. Here in Greenwich, our mill rate is about $11, whereas in poorer parts of the state, the mill rate is much higher, for instance, in Bridgeport, it's $65. So in Greenwich, a $14 million property would be assessed at $9.8 million (assessments are 70% of the market value) and taxed at $11 per $1000, or $107,800 for the $14 million property. In Bridgeport, annual taxes would be six times as much, or around $640,000 per year.
Sales taxes are usually administered by the state and collected by the state, not the county. Thus, the local municipality would likely not derive much benefit from the sales taxes.
Every business and individual who pays taxes pays for government services, true. And the government provides services -- police, fire, a monetary system, defense, a court system, an enforcer of property rights -- that are absolutely essential. Problem is, they also provide a slew of services that they have no business providing.
The collection system is messed up, sure, but no system is going to be perfect. But when the government devises a system, whether it's an income tax system, a property tax system, or a sales tax system, it should levy these taxes fairly, and not give one group a break over the others because they are more moral or connected or whatever. In a sales tax scheme, all should be taxes, income taxes should be applied on a flat structure, and property taxes should be levied against all property owners, whether they be a brothel or a church.
And as far back as you care to go, that is, decidedly Un-American.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.