Posted on 02/08/2010 7:55:22 AM PST by deport
Critics say eliminating all property taxes would reduce local control.
Debra Medina, the feisty Republican running for governor, promises Texans that she will liberate them from their property taxes.
"I talk about that for freedom reasons first," Medina said at the Jan. 29 gubernatorial debate.
"We've surrendered private property ownership to the ever-growing state — we lease our property in the form of ever increasing rents known as property taxes," she wrote on her campaign Web site. "We've forgotten that ownership is an essential element of freedom."
A call to eliminate property taxes might resonate with many taxpayers, beleaguered by the demands for more money from schools, cities, counties, emergency districts and more when their wallets are thin.
But critics say the freedom Medina promises would come at a huge cost to local taxpayers because they would lose a critical element of control over the governments closest to them.
As envisioned by Medina, the property taxes now paid by Texans — $39 billion as of last year — would be replaced with a sales tax applied to more services and to real estate transfers............
The combined state and local sales tax rate is now 8.25 percent, which generated $21 billion for state services and $6 billion for local jurisdictions in 2009.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation study found that an average sales tax rate of 14.5 percent could raise enough to equal all the property and sales tax collections without changing what is now taxed. Applying the tax to more services and to real estate sales would allow a lower tax rate of 9 percent. ....
End excerpts... more details at the link.
Palin fires up thousands for Perry
In what looked more like a presidential rally than a gubernatorial one — there was confetti and rock music and a slew of television cameras — Palin followed the course that Perry has set throughout his campaign by repeatedly bashing Washington but never saying Hutchison's name......
Judith Simon of Katy, who wore a pink "Palin Power" T-shirt, said she finds the former governor authentic. "When I listen to Sarah Palin, I hear truth and sincerity coming through her. When you're used to hearing the truth, you recognize the truth."
Simon also said she supports Perry. But her husband, James, a fellow Palin fan, said he would not back Perry because he believes Perry allowed the state to execute an innocent man. ........ end excerpts
Bill White gets Democratic endorsement-American Statesman
....."I'm not perfect," White told the American-Statesman editorial board. "I'm not as mediagenic as some. But I do know how to bring people together to get things done. I do know how to do that. That's what Texas needs right now. There was a day in Texas — and it did exist and I was here — when the leadership was more bipartisan in its approach to state problems." ...... end excerpt
Democratic Governor Debate, White-Shami
What: The first (and only scheduled) 2010 Democratic gubernatorial debate is from 7 to 8 p.m. today at the CBS-11/TXA-21 studios in Fort Worth.
Tune in: Watch live on KVUE, KLRU or News 8 Austin, listen on KXBT (98.9 FM) or see the live stream at texasdebates.org. KUT will air the debate at 8 p.m., and Univision will show it in Spanish Jan. 13 at 10 a.m.
Participants: Houston businessman Farouk Shami, former Houston Mayor Bill White.
Good post.
An article on Medina’s tax proposal...... fyi.
FYI
So replace my property taxes (which I am able to deduct on my federal tax returns) with even more sales taxes which after this year I will not be able to deduct on my federal tax returns. Bottom line, this proposal doesn’t reduce my taxes but rather shifts them from one form to another (and one that is a bit more hidden and thus more easily raised by politicians), and in so doing cause me to have a higher federal tax bill.
Gee, where can I sign up for this brilliant plan?
End the government schools supported by property taxes and you could end property taxes and have a lower sales tax rate increase.
Would they still be able to take your property if you refused to pay the non-existent property tax?
I am all for this. It's immoral that you never own your own property. You may pay off the bank, but the tax man keeps coming.
The economic BOOM this would cause has not been discussed. Only government cry babies wondering where their next dollar will come from. Correction: my next dollar.
A tax that’s listed on every receipt is “more hidden” that one that is NEVER seen by anyone who rents? No, it would show everyone the true cost of government. Ans since we have only been able to deduct it from our Federal Tax for a few years, I think I’d rather go back to the old way (which may not happen if the current deduction is extended or made permanent, FYI) that face the annual 10% increase to my property taxes allowed by State law.
I had a prof. in college explain that Keynesian (sp?) economists love property taxes, because they can use it to control what you do with your property.
A property tax puts the owner in a “use it or lose it” situation. Property taxes are raised to the point on property that the owner must use it (develop the property, rent it, do something to derive immediate income from it to cover the taxes) or lose it (sell it or have the gov. take it away).
“Would they still be able to take your property if you refused to pay the non-existent property tax?”
No they wouldn’t. You would own your property. Well, unless Perry was later re-elected and then confiscated your property to sell it to the Spanish for a toll road.
VRWCmember, do the math. You either pay the sales tax up front or the property tax in perpetuity and ad infinitum. You pay *less* in taxes after, I believe, ten years, assuming a 7% interest rate. Yes, you will end up paying interest to a bank on the tax, but that payment eventually ends. Property tax goes on forever.
I have a friend who buys up land here in Texas where someone, usually after the original owner has died, has not paid the taxes. He supports Perry. This is one big reason why.
True, renters don’t directly pay property taxes, so they never see how much taxes are paid by the property owners and passed along to them in their rent. And while sales tax is printed on every receipt, I bet I have a better idea of how much I paid in property taxes last year than you do of how much sales tax you paid on your McDonald’s breakfast sandwich that you had this morning. People don’t look that closely at their receipts to scrutinize how much they are paying in sales taxes.
On the tax deductibility side, property taxes have been deductible on federal income tax forms for as long as I can remember. Taxpayers were given the option as part of the Bush tax cuts of being able to deduct EITHER their state income taxes paid or their state sales taxes paid, but this option goes away next year (for the 2010 tax year) unless congress acts to extend this provision (unlikely with a democrat congress). This is a big “Screw-you” from the democrats to all taxpayers living in states with no state income tax or in states with higher sales taxes than income taxes. I would prefer not to compound this democrat screw-you with a GOP screw-you to Texas taxpayers.
Common Sense — we had someone like this running in OK in 2002 as an Indy and gave us eight years of Doofus. He promised everything.
You vote on what you are going to fund with property taxes. If you don’t want a new school and enough people agree with you, school won’t get built and taxes won’t go up.
You have ZERO control over sales tax.
If you assume that one only buys things that are subject to sales tax once, and then stops consuming thereafter, then that is true. But in reality, we continue to consume "ad infinitum".
Under this proposal, if my property taxes were to go away, I would still be paying the same -- if not more -- in taxes, but in the form of sales taxes that are not tax deductible starting next year. So my state taxes stay the same or go up. My federal taxes go up because I lose a deduction. I have less to spend on the things I would choose to consume. But if I "do the math" I'll like this proposal?
Does your friend think Perry invented the property tax? Perry actually proposed a property tax reform that was supposed to reduce property taxes.
It still comes down to really owning your property, or just renting it from an entity that allows your taxes to automatically be raised by 10% every year with no direct action by an elected politician. As a guideline, if Democrats are for/against it, you should side opposite them - and the Democrats and RINOs are REALLY against eliminating the property tax.
You have to wonder if allowing the sales tax deduction was an early chess move to give property tax proponents ammunition in this very debate - don’t do that, since you can deduce property taxes but the sales tax deduction is going away! Raising sales (consumption) taxes are bad - we need to keep taxings the means of production, er, I mean, property, so we can provide vital services and never face the voter when our appraisal districts give us our 10% raises every year. That’s GOOOD!
Please address the automatically allowed 10% increase to your taxes every year based on the appraisal being raised. I guarantee you in the last 3 years, most people have seen their actual property taxes increase by a larger amount than the income tax deduction would have provided.
If you can lose you property to the county for non-payment of taxes then you never really own it in the first place, do you?
Another senario. Take an amount say $50,000 as spendable income. Spend all of it and tax it at 4% above the current rate of 8.25%. That would be equal to $2,000 in extra sale taxes for the year. Now compare that $2,000 extra sales tax expense to the current property tax you are paying. Which would be better for the indiviual. I bet most people would come out ahead with a higher sales tax. jmo.
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